Our Story… The Doors Open Wide! (August, 2014)

Once we had the place and the professional staff together, we invited pregnant moms, who were struggling with addiction to opioids, along with moms and their preschool age children who had been exposed to drugs in-utero. Our mission was and is to restore physical, mental and spiritual health and wholeness to women and their drug-exposed children.

As soon as women and children started coming, we learned that many women have the same story – a background of varying abuse, generational addiction, incarceration, sex-trafficking and a lack of healthy family relationships. We also learned that socio-economic and educational background was not necessarily a predictor of who becomes addicted, nor of who achieves successful sobriety.

We knew that love and relationships are much of the battle in healing from addiction. We designed our Intensive Outpatient Program to include mentoring from volunteers and developed wrap-around programs to provide on-going support from the community.

Being a faith-based organization has been an important part of who we are. We welcome ALL faiths, or no faith at all. We have been determined to provide the best evidence-based care and surround our moms and children with the non-judgmental love of God and other women.

In 2015, Susannah’s House became a separate 501-C3 non-profit. As such, we have been determined to use best-practices in all our affairs - financial, employment, and program. In 2015, we received an award from the Knoxville Metro Drug Coalition for Innovative Treatment.

We have so many community partners, as well as those who have believed in our mission enough to provide grants and gifts, large and small. Each one has enabled the most vulnerable women and children in our population to have the opportunity to become the mothers their children need.

Oh, and little baby Emma who started all of this? She began Kindergarten this year and is the light of her adoptive parents’ eyes!