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Interventionist in Fort Lauderdale and Broward County
A Fort Lauderdale interventionist who works for the family, not the facility.
Broward has no shortage of programs, helplines and people offering to place your loved one tonight. We are the ones you pay directly, so the only thing steering our advice is what your family member actually needs.
A family in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood or Coral Springs usually has the opposite of the rural problem. There are too many doors, and too many of them are sales doors. Before you call another number from a search ad, it helps to know which doors belong to the public system, which belong to the courts, and which belong to a business that profits when your loved one is admitted.
That sorting is our first job. G3 is based in Austin, Texas, prepares Broward families by phone and video the same day, and flies in for the intervention. Our only client is you.
If this sounds like your family
Parents whose adult child moved to South Florida for treatment years ago and never came home. Spouses in Weston or Plantation who have run out of explanations for the neighbors. Siblings up north trying to help a brother in a Fort Lauderdale sober house that does not answer the phone.
The public side of Broward’s system
The numbers worth knowing before you need them.
Henderson Behavioral Health
The Broward Behavioral Health Coalition, the DCF managing entity for the county, lists its Mobile Response Team for adults and youth at 954-463-0911.
BARC
The Broward Addiction and Recovery Center, 325 S.W. 28th Street, is listed by the Coalition as an adult addictions receiving facility for detox and treatment: (954) 357-4880.
Clerk, Mental Health
Baker Act ex parte and Marchman petitions are completed in person at the Central Courthouse. The Broward Clerk lists 954-831-5648.
911 and 988
For immediate danger, call 911 and, as the Coalition suggests, ask whether a CIT-trained officer can respond. Call or text 988 for the 988 Florida Lifeline.
What we actually do for a Broward family
Think of it in two tracks running side by side. On the family track, Hannah Gibson, our co-founder and case manager, collects the history and the names: who your loved one trusts, who has been burned, who is still covering. Matt Gibson, a Certified Interventionist (CAI), chooses the approach and coaches each person by video until the letters are brief, honest and impossible to argue with. Most families are surprised by how much gets cut.
On the placement track, we vet programs on clinical fit and on honesty. In Broward that second test matters. We ask who owns the sober housing a program refers to, how a patient moves between the two, and what happens on the day someone relapses. A program that cannot answer cleanly does not get our recommendation, wherever it ranks on a search page. When we have a match, we confirm the bed, verify the insurance and arrange the trip.
Then Matt flies into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) and meets the family the evening before. The intervention happens where your loved one will feel least cornered, which is rarely a restaurant and never a parking lot. If the answer is yes, our escort is already scheduled. Pricing is a flat fee in writing, with travel at actual cost and sober transport quoted separately.
Filing in Broward: the Judicial Complex, third floor
No fee to file. A real cost if there is nowhere to go afterward.
Broward County is the entire 17th Judicial Circuit (s. 26.021, Florida Statutes). The Clerk’s Mental Health office sits at the Judicial Complex, West Building, 201 S.E. 6th Street, Fort Lauderdale, 3rd Floor, Room 03160, open weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The Clerk asks a family member or other adult with direct personal knowledge to come in person to complete a Marchman petition, and lists no fees or court costs for Baker Act ex parte or Marchman filings.
The statute agrees on the money: s. 397.681 bars the clerk from charging a fee, and the petition is filed in the county where the person is located. Since the 2024 rewrite, one adult with direct personal knowledge may petition, alongside a spouse, guardian, relative or service provider (s. 397.68112). The hearing must be set within 10 court working days (s. 397.68151), and in an emergency the court can order assessment ex parte (s. 397.6818).
For a psychiatric crisis, the Baker Act family route is a sworn ex parte petition for examination under s. 394.463. The Coalition lists seven Baker Act receiving facilities in the county, including Broward Health Medical Center, Memorial Regional Hospital and Henderson’s crisis stabilization unit. Our Florida Marchman Act guide and Florida mental health intervention page go deeper on each law.
Fort Lauderdale’s treatment economy, and the laws written because of it
Families from out of state often arrive with a picture of Fort Lauderdale as a recovery capital, and part of that is true. There is good care here. There has also been enough fraud that Florida wrote unusually specific laws about it. The Patient Brokering Act, s. 817.505, makes it a felony for anyone, including a provider, to offer or accept a commission, bonus, benefit or kickback for steering a patient. Penalties rise with the number of patients involved, up to a first-degree felony and a $500,000 fine at 20 or more.
Sober housing is where brokering has often hidden. Florida’s recovery residence certification is voluntary (s. 397.487), but a licensed treatment provider may not refer a patient to, or accept one from, a residence that lacks a valid certificate and a certified administrator (s. 397.4873). The DCF-approved credentialing body for residences is the Florida Association of Recovery Residences, and you can check a house on the FARR site. A house that advertises itself as certified without a certificate is committing a misdemeanor.
Licenses are public too. Search a substance use provider in the DCF licensing database, and psychiatric facilities in AHCA’s FloridaHealthFinder. Neither is a quality rating, and DCF says so. They are a floor. Our treatment navigation is what sits above it, and our page on the Florida Shuffle shows the warning signs we watch for.
Broward recorded 371 drug poisoning deaths among residents in 2024, an age-adjusted rate of 17.7 per 100,000, down from 536 in 2023, according to FLHealthCHARTS. The drop is real progress. It is also 371 families.
Geography helps here. FLL sits minutes from most of the county, I-95 and the Turnpike run north toward Palm Beach and south to Miami, and I-595 links the coast to I-75 for anyone heading west across Alligator Alley. When treatment is out of state, a single flight with an escort is usually simpler than a long drive. When it is in Florida, we still send someone along. Our guide to interstate intervention logistics covers how we plan either case.
Numbers, roads and the trip to treatment
One call, no script
Start with an honest assessment.
If what you are facing in Broward needs a hospital, a court or a different kind of help, we will tell you on the first call.
Broward questions
Fort Lauderdale families often ask.
Where is a Marchman Act petition filed in Broward County?
What is BARC, and can our son go there?
Who do we call in Broward if he is in crisis but not violent?
Our daughter lives in a Fort Lauderdale sober house. How do we know it is legitimate?
Do you have someone based in Fort Lauderdale?
How much does an intervention cost?
Nearby
Intervention help around Broward
The next step is a conversation
You do not have to figure this out alone.
One confidential call with G3 begins it. No pressure, no judgment, just a path forward.