Meet Jacqueline A. Dawes Owner of Brookhaven Retreat in Seymour, TN

 

Jacqueline Dawes is the owner and founder of Brookhaven Retreat, a unique, voluntary residential treatment facility specially designed to help women overcome emotional trauma or addiction challenges. Dawes’ story is the story of one woman, faced with a devastating loss and other issues, who searched unsuccessfully for answers to her own problems, realized that there were others like her in the world, and ended up founding a treatment center exclusively for women.

A fully accredited and certified dual-diagnosis center, Brookhaven Retreat is one of America’s premier treatment centers for emotional trauma and addiction and offers female-specific treatment. Located on 48 beautiful acres in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, Brookhaven Retreat offers modern, holistic care with compassion and respect from a highly trained expert staff of 75 women who are licensed therapists, physicians, registered nurses, nurse practitioners and licensed practical nurses.

The business model used by Brookhaven Retreat relies on residential treatment program admission fees.

Dawes, a mother of two, a property developer, and a specialist in owning and operating assisted living facilities, founded Brookhaven Retreat in 2004.

Dawes was born in Colorado, but raised and educated in the United Kingdom.  She relocated to the United States with her son, Jonathan, after the devastating loss of her 18-year-old daughter in 1998. It was the loss of her daughter, her struggle with grieving and her subsequent divorce that led Dawes to found the Brookhaven Retreat.

Dawes established the recovery center for women who have numbed themselves emotionally and shut off their feelings in a struggle to endure emotional breakage; women who could not cope with the guilt and shame of their perceived failures; and for women who were unable to seek full time care because of the humiliation of admitting the need for help.

She chose to settle in East Tennessee because of its similarity to Scotland, where she spent most of her adult life.

Dawes’ personal experiences with addiction, as well as her professional experience with treatment, allow her to be an expert in the mental health field. Her powerful and innovative vision and commitment inspires those around her and keeps Brookhaven Retreat on the leading edge among rehabilitation facilities.

Recently, Dawes has begun a research partnership with the Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.  In April 2009, she addressed members of the Health & Human Resources Committee of the Tennessee House of Representatives regarding the importance of states changing their treatment center laws and regulations so providers are granted dual licenses and able to offer substance abuse and mental health services at the same time, in the same physical location.

For more information, visit www.brookhavenretreat.com