Refuge Center for Counseling
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615-591-5262
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4317 Long Lane
Franklin, TN 37064
Organization Details

Statements

Mission

The Refuge Center exists to offer excellent, accessible and affordable mental and emotional healthcare services in support of a transformational impact on communities.

Background

The Refuge Center for Counseling, Inc. opened in December 2005 as the vision of its founders Jennifer Gillett and Amy Alexander. Jennifer and Amy had completed their Master's degrees in Marriage and Family Therapy and had a strong desire to serve the county they both lived in-Williamson county. This county is often recognized for its wealth, which overshadows those who are in need. To live in a place with great prosperity and to be in need is to often feel invisible. The vision of The Refuge Center was to make sure that every individual and family had the opportunity to seek therapeutic resources, regardless of income level. Jennifer and Amy had discovered that there were few opportunities for affordable counseling in the area, as many local therapists charge $90-$225+ per session. They wanted to be able to offer therapy to those who could not afford these fees, so they created a sliding-scale based on income that ranges from $19-$125. The name for the center came from a passage in Isaiah which says, "It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and a hiding place from the storm and the rain." (Is 4:6). The vision is also that beyond being a place to receive affordable counseling, The Refuge Center will also be a place where people are able to find hope and healing from the storms of their daily lives. The Refuge Center has counselors, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and Masters level interns working at the agency. Each counselor has a different area of focus, including domestic and dating violence, adolescent behavioral issues, addictions, marital-therapy, grief and loss counseling, family counseling, and therapy for parent-training and adoptions-related issues. The Refuge Center receives referrals from over 80 different sources including churches, drug-court, domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters, juvenile detention centers, and other counselors. The Refuge Center currently serves clients coming from 18+ counties in TN.

Impact

This past year has seen so many hopes and dreams for Refuge come to fruition. Over the past 12 months 4,057 people have found their refuge from the storms of their daily life in our counseling offices, waiting rooms, and in the company of our therapists. Through over 39,000 sessions, kids, teens, adults, and families have come in facing some of life's most challenging problems: anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship issues, and so much more and have been given the strength and tools to overcome them… truly transforming themselves and their pain as well as their families, and communities. Our 70+ counseling staff provide a process that allows people to become free of the burdens, barriers and shame stories they carry so they can live "fully alive" and untethered.

Over the course of the last year, we began a partnership with the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services that allows many of our clients who are without insurance and meet other eligibility criteria to come to Refuge for free. This year we also placed two counselors into hospital emergency rooms, in partnership with our local hospital, to help
those who are suicidal to feel seen and cared for in their crisis.

We partnered with The Amen Clinic to expand brain health scans and services to clients. We both expanded and launched several modalities such as Neurofeedback, Virtual Reality Therapy, and Movement/Somatic Therapy. We started a partnership with The Change Your Brain Foundation to provide brain scans and treatment plans to eligible clients, hosted several capital events, had our most successful Golf Tournament ever, and raised a record amount at our "Hope Grows" fundraiser. These are just a few of the things that have been accomplished in this last year!

In addition to those lofty accomplishments, our Staff, Board, Partnership Council, and Donors have continued to work tirelessly to care for people right where they are, and offer dignity for anyone on the economic spectrum and provide a place where Refuge can be "a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and a hiding place from the storm and the rain." When you give to The Refuge Center you partake in a ripple effect that spans over 18 counties and the entire state of Tennessee, transforming invisible wounds and injuries into places where the light shines through the brightest. The vast impact of YOUR generous and selfless support makes this life-changing work possible! Thank you for making such a difference in so many lives and communities, we are so deeply grateful!

Needs

1) To increase community awareness about services.
2) To grow annual and capital fund.
3) To address operational needs (including technology) to improve staff and client experience.
4) To grow skill specific volunteer base.

CEO Statement

Nearly twenty years ago the words of Isaiah 4:6 inspired the name for The Refuge Center for Counseling. The verse reads, "It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and the rain." With the vision of providing people a safe place to navigate the storms of their daily lives, The Refuge Center has distinguished itself a place of HOPE -an inclusive, accessible, family-centered environment with talented, mission-minded therapists, nurturing spaces, and affordable cutting-edge services. Affordability and excellence are hallmarks of the services at The Refuge Center and we support a culture of compassionate care, character, connection and continuous growth within the organization.

Since opening in 2005, The Refuge Center has now provided nearly 340,000 counseling sessions. It has been an incredible year of unprecedented blessing and growth here at The Refuge Center for Counseling! Our outstanding group of staff and Board have invested deeply into this organization to see that clients receive the best possible care and access to emotional healing. This year we will provide over 40,000 counseling sessions for more than 4,100 individuals. The Refuge Center received referrals from over 80 sources and also continues to partner with other local non-profit agencies for great collective impact.

If the mission and vision of our organization stirs your soul, we invite you to participate in the healing and transformative work of Refuge through the extension of your own gifts and resources. I would encourage you to explore if this vision aligns with your deepest, most heartfelt commitments. To see if it somehow connects you to a higher calling or soulful longing. We all ultimately want to be known for what we allocate, not what we accumulate. We want to leave a legacy of investing generously in the well-being of others. And so, at times such as these, we are afforded the opportunity to ask ourselves: If our resources could talk, what is the voice we would want them to have? What message do you most want to send to the world? At Refuge our message is, "You don't have to walk this road alone." Please join us!

Sincerely,
Amy Alexander, CEO and Co-Founder

Board Chair Statement

The Refuge Center for Counseling continues to be blessed in so many ways. We finished the 2024 calendar year with astounding success and have carried that momentum into 2025. This year we will be in our new building and working through Stage 5 of our Capital Campaign fundraising efforts to become completely debt free! In November 2024, we moved into our new home, and we are blessed beyond measure to have increased capacity to serve our community. In December 2024, we opened an Endowment fund to position the organization for generational stability and success!

Amidst the challenges of raising money for our annual needs (as well as the new building via our capital campaign), the team continues to deliver in a big way. The staff and therapists, once again, positively impacted the lives and families of the Middle Tennessee community by providing nearly 40,000 counseling sessions. Join me in thanking our amazing Refuge team, they are providing a transformational impact on our community!

Our Founder/CEO Amy Alexander leads with passion and expertise to make this repetitive success seem easy! It is not easy, but with her leading our team, we will accomplish our goals by continuing to deliver excellent, accessible, and affordable mental and emotional healthcare services. We need to raise nearly ~$1.4M annually to keep the organization running while also raising an additional ~$4.4M for our capital campaign to achieve debt free status. Join me in investing for our future, this work matters!


Eric Baer
Board President
The Refuge Center for Counseling


Service Categories

Primary Category: Mental Health & Crisis Intervention  - Counseling 
Secondary Category: Human Services  -  
Tertiary Category: -

Areas Served

The Refuge Center for Counseling primary offices are in Franklin (Williamson County) and we have a satellite office location in Nashville (Davidson). We serve clients who reside in counties across Middle Tennessee (and beyond) - including Bedford, Davidson, Cheatham, Dickson, Giles, Hickman, Humphreys, Lawrence, Wilson, Maury, Marshall, Montgomery, Robertson, Rutherford, Sumner, Warren Williamson County. With Telehealth options, The Refuge Center can serve the entire state of Tennessee!

TN - Hickman
TN - Giles
TN - Humphreys
TN - Lawrence
TN - Montgomery
TN - Robertson
TN - Wilson
TN - Rutherford
TN - Williamson
TN - Davidson
TN - Maury
TN - Sumner
TN - Cheatham
TN - Dickson
TN - Marshall
TN - Bedford
TN - Warren