THE GOAL

To contribute to treatment for mental illness by creating a restorative environment within which individuals who have been socially and vocationally disabled by mental illness can attain or regain the self esteem, confidence and skills necessary to lead vocationally productive and socially satisfying lives.

POTENTIAL PLACE PROGRAMS

In the Clubhouse model the focus is on the strengths and the abilities of members, and they are offered opportunities to share in the real work needed to run the Clubhouse. The prejudice against mentally ill people, and the commonly held belief that they cannot work, or that their behaviors are immutable, are daily confronted by the realities of members and staff working side by side. The stereotype beliefs about the mentally ill and the low self esteem of the members are dispelled in the real world of work.

HISTORY
THE CLUBHOUSE MOVEMENT

As far back as history records, people with severe mental illness have been shunned society, kept at a "safe" distance, and treated with various combinations of fear, magic, neglect, sympathy and avoidance. Well into this century, treatment for severe and persistent mental illness consisted of 1ife-Long incarceration in "asylums". In the 1950's and 60's, the massive movement toward de-institutionalization presumably changed all of that. Day treatment programs, which sprang up in every community after the patients were released from hospitals, were meant to represent a new direction for mental health delivery services. However, all that the day treatment programs were able to or expected to deliver was still just that -"treatment".

Although patients were indeed released to live outside the hospital walls, for many years this arrangement served only to prolong their "asylum" from opportunity, community and meaningful daily work. Most remained full-time patients in medical-model day programs, perceiving their primary role in life as receiving "treatment" from professionals. As helpful as medications and therapies can be, such programs are not equipped to look beyond the "patient" to the "person" nor to address the person's need for community, engagement in meaningful relationships and work.

In recent years a burgeoning movement has arisen, fueled with the hopes and dreams of men and women with diagnosis of severe mental illness. It is rooted in a core belief that what people who have mental illness need is not continued isolation as fu1l-time patients, but incorporation into the world as it is. The Clubhouse community, endorsing the philosophy of Fountain House in New Your City , believes that men and women with mental illness (the "members") have the right to a life which includes access to meaningful, gainful employment, a decent place to live, a supportive community, opportunities for education and recreation in their communities, and the chance to be needed, wanted and expected somewhere every day.

Central to the Clubhouse is the member, with all of his or her strengths, talents, history, experience, likes, dislikes, hopes, fears and dreams for the future. The Clubhouse community believes that rehabilitation of people with mental illness must involve the whole person in a process of gradual acceptance into a community providing equality, respect and opportunity. With this kind of support, many men and women with mental illness, for so long deemed vocationally hopeless, can work and become fully participating members of the larger community