Abba House is a safe place for women and children
We are a residential ministry program for women struggling with life controlling issues. We minister to women who struggle with substance abuse, victims of domestic violence, eating disorders, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, sexual abuse victims, and women rescued from sex trafficking.
Your Recovery is Worth it
Choosing to come to Abba House and committing to a 15-month residential abuse and addiction recovery ministry, can be one of the hardest decisions a person makes, but one that can ultimately end in tremendous gain for her life and the lives of those around her.
What we do
Abba House teaches the women to deal with the emotional challenges of life–past, present and future.
Through this, they gain emotional stability that helps prevent them from needing to rely on drugs, alcohol or any of life’s common addictions.
The Being Made Whole Program is the core that makes Abba House such a success. This intense program has proven successful without psychotropic medication over 25 years as Abba House has ministered to people with addiction and mental health issues.
Many of the women that come to Abba House lack the skills necessary to hold a steady job as well as how to manage a household. The instability of their past holds them in bondage from being able to move forward and be successful. At Abba House, the women gain many skills that help them to lead a successful life as they graduate and move on. We offer them the opportunity to gain a variety of life skills and skills they will use in future career opportunities.
As they progress through the program, they are put into leadership positions where they learn to have confidence in their ability to lead and in their value. They learn to work as a team, to be consistent, and maintain accountability.
Along with job skills, the women who graduate Abba House learn to be part of a healthy family. They take classes and learn from example of how to properly raise their children in a healthy environment. They also learn cooking and cleaning skills. Every part of their lives are revolutionized helping them to start a new life with something to offer
How we do it
The program is a minimum of 15 months and consists of four phases.
Privileges and family contact are different for each phase. To apply to enter the next phase students must complete the minimum time requirement for each phase. After applying, the student is evaluated by peers and leadership. Students must show growth in areas like having a good work ethic, being trustworthy, seeking God, completing class work, having good hygiene and a positive attitude. They must be less manipulative, obsessive, judgmental, vindictive, self-righteous, and controlling.
These evaluations help ensure that the students have an accurate perception of areas that they are growing in and areas that they still need improvement. If the student has made enough progress, she is advanced to the next phase, if not she is given more time in the current phase to help ensure that she will be ready for living a successful life after graduation.
Children's Program
As a mother enters the second phase (around the fourth month), leadership works with the student and the caretaker of her children to decide when the mother is ready to transition her children to live with her at Abba House.
There are two main goals in bringing the children; the mother must apply what she has learned about parenting and the child must receive healing for past hurts.
Many of the women at Abba House are trying to learn to be a godly mother for the first time, and it is almost impossible to learn to parent without a coach.
At Abba House we provide people who have a heart to help the mom be established as a successful parent and who have a heart to see the children flourish.
We provide a variety of parenting classes while a woman is a resident of our program regardless of if she already has children of her own.
Family Recovery
We desire to help the whole family heal since the issues the addicted face are often deeply ingrained in the family system.
We have a time each Sunday where immediate family members can attend Family Group.
During the family group sessions families can learn how to communicate better and talk about issues that need to be discussed.
This can be a perfect time to seek and give forgiveness. It is difficult to face personal shortcomings but confessing them sets an example and encourages everyone to talk about their own struggles.
Family Group is open to the public, but space is limited. Call 478-218-0043 for times and openings.
Life Skills
While addiction and mental health issues are serious and often life threatening, they are not the only impediments to a successful life that women graduating from Abba House face.
We are a therapeutic community and have set a goal of ensuring that every woman at Abba House be made completely functional in every area of her life.
In keeping with this focus the title of our core curriculum is “Being Made Whole.”
The Life Skills Program at Abba House presently consists of:
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Financial: Personal financial training is received through Financial Peace University.
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Leadership: Each student will have a variety of leadership positions like House mom, Thrift Store Assistant Manager, and Thrift Store Department Leader. We help women develop their leadership potential and find confidence within themselves.
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Mental & Sexual Health: Abba House program, anger management, ministry for victims of sexual abuse, classes on sex and love addiction, inner healing prayer ministry.
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Physical Fitness: Exercise twice a day & practicing a healthy lifestyle as well as healthy eating habits. Sugar and caffeine consumption is limited.
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Recreational/Play: Weekly game night as well as participation in special community events, we attend some concerts and faith-based conferences.
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Relational: Marriage preparation and enrichment, peer and staff accountability for parenting application, family recovery, peer to peer interpersonal development. During a woman's program she creates a bond with her peers that last a lifetime and provide a support system for after graduation.
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Spirituality: Daily devotional time and church attendance on Sundays as well as Bible studies on Wednesdays. Elijah House and Transformation Prayer Ministry is utilized throughout the course of a woman's program. Celebrate Recovery meetings are attended weekly.
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Vocational: EFNEP Training and certification from the University of Georgia, Dental assistant training program through partnerships, and Abba House Ministry Training Program.
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Home Management: instruction in nutrition, cooking, maintaining home & yard, time management
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Educational: During the final phase of her program, we allow women to obtain their GED. We also are in the process of developing assessments for individuals to determine their education level and provide available resources for gaining additional education needed.
