RENEW THE WHOLE PERSON. RESTORE A LIFE.
Imagine bringing together all the children whose lives have been positively impacted by Renewal House.
Imagine these children now grown leading lives of meaning and purpose. Imagine these children years earlier when they were there with their mothers who were going through addiction treatment at the time. And the impact they must have had on their mothers and the motivation they provided them at that critical point. You can begin to see why having children and mothers together in a residential addiction treatment program made all the difference in the direction of their lives.
Now imagine these children’s lives if their mothers had never gotten that kind of help and addiction treatment.
How do you preserve and keep a family together, so that mother and child can recover and heal as one?
WE TREAT THEM BOTH.
More than 20 years ago, a group of concerned and visionary Middle Tennesseans formed a task force made up of judges, lawyers, doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, healthcare professionals, community agency representatives and community volunteers with the goal of preserving families going through addiction treatment and recovery. At the time, women who were mothers starting addiction treatment programs were separated from their children upon entering a program. Children were placed in foster care to the detriment of the child, the family and the mother’s recovery, resulting in unfavorable outcomes and potential addiction relapses.
The task group knew there had to be a better way for both the mother and child. Their innovative solution was to have the mother and her children remain together in treatment and throughout the recovery process as a more effective way of keeping families permanently intact and breaking the cycle of addiction. With that simple idea, Renewal House was born.
Founded in 1996, Renewal House was a groundbreaking idea. It was Nashville’s first comprehensive residential addiction recovery program for women and their children. Since then, more than 630 women and 500 children have gone through the Renewal House residential treatment program. And the trajectory of their lives has been forever changed.
BECAUSE TOGETHER IS BETTER.
Women, particularly mothers, in the throes of addiction have unique needs, concerns and issues that cannot always be met in traditional addiction treatment programs. So, they may wait longer to seek treatment and even hide their substance abuse for fear of losing custody of their children, or being arrested. The combined burdens of childcare, work, finances, caring for the home, pregnancy and other family responsibilities create more obstacles to treatment.
Women face more obstacles to treatment, including childcare needs, family obligations, finances and the possibility of pregnancy.
Women are also less likely to receive adequate treatment for substance abuse than men and less likely to receive care at a specialized drug treatment facility. In addition, there is a lack of addiction treatment programs for lower income women, and an even bigger lack of programs for those women who are pregnant.
Fortunately, Renewal House recognizes that separating a mother-to-be or current mother from her children during addiction treatment is not particularly effective.
In fact, that same fear of losing her children can also compel a woman to get help and motivate her to stay in comprehensive treatment until her recovery is complete. Having her child or newborn with her during the treatment and recovery process gives mother and child the opportunity to positively bond and heal together. And it breaks the cycle of addiction for generations to come.
Renewal House provides several options for evidence-based women’s addiction treatment programs:
Family Residential Treatment – A structured family-centered residential program where women and their children going through treatment and recovery live in independent apartments on the Renewal House campus
Intensive Outpatient Program – A licensed program added in 2003 providing group therapy and educational sessions focused on the root causes of a woman’s addiction
Recovery Housing – Affordable recovery housing for women and their children
Recover Together – A partnership with Vanderbilt University Medical Center providing patient assessments, individual counseling, family support and outpatient treatment groups
On average, we provide 60 women with intensive addiction treatment each year. And on any given day, there are 60 women on the waiting list needing our help. The current opioid crisis has sharply increased the demand for services. Sadly, Tennessee has one of the highest rates of babies born with withdrawal symptoms known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). In a ten-year period alone from 2002 – 2012, Tennessee experienced a 15-fold increase in babies born with NAS. Renewal House is the only residential addiction treatment program for pregnant women and mothers and their children in Middle Tennessee.
Effective evidence-based practices that ensure successful outcomes for both mother and child can be found in these Renewal House therapy programs:
Al’s Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices - A resiliency-based curriculum that develops children’s personal, social and emotional skills to help them make safe and healthy choices
Incredible Years - A developmentally-based program for mothers and their infants/toddlers that strengthens parent-child interactions and bonds
Nurturing Parenting! - A family-centered trauma-informed program that builds positive parenting skills, family nurturing and childhood brain development
Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) - A children’s treatment program that focuses on improving the quality of parent-child interactions and relationships
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) - A cognitive behavioral program that teaches mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness and emotional regulation
First Steps in Music - A program that uses music to enhance the parent-child bond
“ What we really need is to ensure people living with addiction have access to treatment. That’s true for pregnant women, that’s true for all people.” -- U.S. Surgeon General
