Newark Renaissance House

Newark Renaissance House was established in 1975 as a drug-free residential therapeutic community for the treatment of substance abusing adults. During 1980 Renaissance House developed an after school prevention program for adolescents which provided much needed counseling and educational services for high risk middle school youngsters. In 1984 the... Head of Household program began. This out patient drug treatment program addressed the needs of working adults with evening hours and on site child care services. As AIDS became a problem for our clientele, we were one of the first programs to set aside beds for addicts with HIV. A short time later we were fortunate enough to be funded for the nation's first mobile van to do community AIDS prevention, education, physical examinations, and referrals. In July of 1986, because of increasing demand, our funding sources allowed us to convert our adult residential and the out patient Head of Household programs, to a full service, family oriented, therapeutic community for chemically dependent youth. This program offered a three phased continuum of care whereby the adolescents moved from residential, to day treatment and then out patient status. In February of 1988 we opened admission to the day treatment and out patient programs to youth who were not in need of residential treatment. One day in 1989, a young girl came to us and asked if there were services for her mother who had promised her that she would stop using drugs as her 12th birthday present. And so our outpatient Head of Household program reopened with the addition of an intervention program for the children of substance abusers. In 1993, after the completion of our newly constructed ambulatory care facility the program was redesigned as an intensive outpatient program for pregnant women and women with children ages 0 to 5 years. Children accompanied their mothers to treatment and participated in our developmental therapeutic nursery program. In 1994 we opened a residential program for women with their ...Read More