Breaking Barriers, Building Futures: Inside the Center for Great Expectations’ Continuum of Care
In the heart of Somerset, New Jersey, there’s a place where transformative healing happens every day. The Center for Great Expectations (CGE) is a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to supporting pregnant and parenting individuals and families impacted by substance use disorder (SUD), trauma, housing instability, and mental health challenges. Since its founding in 1998, CGE has grown from a small two-bedroom home to a comprehensive continuum of care, serving more than 1,000 people each year across multiple programs.
A Continuum That Keeps Families Together
What sets CGE apart is its trauma-responsive, relationship-based model of care, a framework designed for sustained recovery, which means more than abstinence and includes holistic wellbeing and relational health. CGE’s continuum spans multiple levels of care, all delivered with trauma-attuned, relational support at the core.
- Residential Programs: Healing with Children at the Center
CGE operates two residential treatment programs where mothers can live with their children while receiving treatment:
- Adult Residential Treatment: A sanctuary where pregnant and parenting women and their children up to age six can work toward recovery from substance use, trauma, and mental health diagnoses in a safe, nurturing environment. Only a small fraction of U.S. programs allow mothers to remain with their children during treatment— and CGE is one of them.
- Adolescent Residential Treatment: Designed for pregnant or parenting young women (ages 13–20) and their children, this program integrates mental health therapy, case management, life skills development, supportive services, and child-centered care to break cycles of trauma early in life.
Both programs emphasize early relational health: strengthening the critical relationship between parent and child as a foundation for lifelong wellness.
- Roots to Recovery: Outpatient and Intensive Support
Not every individual needs the high level of treatment offered in residential care. Roots to Recovery provides outpatient and intensive outpatient treatment for substance use and co-occurring mental health conditions. This includes counseling, medication-assisted treatment (MAT), psychiatric care, and supportive case management; all aimed at fostering sustained recovery while individuals remain in the community.
- Permanent Supportive Housing: Stability After Treatment
Stable, long term housing is a necessary foundation for successful treatment and long-term recovery. CGE’s Permanent Supportive Housing program offers families safe, low-income housing paired with intensive case management and supportive services. For mothers who experienced homelessness or unstable living situations, this housing represents a new beginning, a place where recovery can continue and families can flourish.
- START: Treatment in the Home
CGE eliminates boundaries to treatment that exist for mothers in recovery. Addressing challenges like transportation, childcare, lack of insurance, and stigma, the START Program brings care directly into people’s homes, free of charge for 18 months. Licensed clinicians, community doulas, and peer recovery specialists provide trauma-attuned SUD treatment, prenatal and postpartum support, and relationship-based therapy that help families thrive from pregnancy forward.
- Early Relational Health and Trauma-Attuned Care
Across every program, CGE’s clinical philosophy is centered in the Relational Recovery Model©. This model has been created by CGE and meets the unique needs of mothers in recovery. The organization also partners with academic institutions like Rutgers University’s School of Social Work to implement measurement-based care and continuous quality improvement, ensuring the best outcomes for participants.
Why CGE Matters
CGE’s continuum goes beyond treatment. It keeps families together, integrates housing and health services, and transforms systems that have too often failed people in need. Its work addresses not only the clinical symptoms of SUD and trauma but also the social and relational factors that affect long-term recovery and family stability.
Every story at CGE, from a mother reunifying with a child after removal of custody, to a young parent developing life skills, is a testament to the power of hope, dignity, and community. In a world where many treatment systems are fragmented, the Center for Great Expectations stands as a model of what compassionate, comprehensive care can achieve.
