Beyond the Stigma: Hope on Haven Hill

She brought her newborn home from the hospital on Friday, just in time for Mother’s Day. Her friends gathered around her, cooing to her curly-haired baby boy and fussing over his 1-year-old sister.

“It feels good to be home,” she said, smiling at the sleeping infant in her lap.

For this 22-year-old mom, home is Hope on Haven Hill in Rochester, a residential recovery house for pregnant and postpartum moms who have struggled with addiction and homelessness.

It’s one of only two residential recovery programs in New Hampshire for this population; the other is Cynthia Day Family Center, part of Keystone Hall in Nashua.

The Hope farmhouse has six cozy bedrooms for moms and their kids, a sunny kitchen and plenty of places inside and out for quiet or companionship. One woman taped photos of her kids on her bedroom wall with the message: “Find something you would die for … and live for it.”

Kerry Norton, R.N., a Hope founder and its program director, said the women who live here are “the bravest people” she knows.

Read the full article from the May 12, 2018 edition of the New Hampshire Union Leader.

“Beyond The Stigma” is a year-long series sponsored by the New Hampshire Solutions Journalism Lab at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications and funded by the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the New Hampshire chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and private individuals.