What is a Clubhouse?
Clubhouses are a powerful demonstration of the fact that people with mental illness can and do lead normal, productive lives. Clubhouses provide members with opportunities to build long-term relationships that, in turn, support them in obtaining employment, education and housing. They are community centers that offer members:
· a work-ordered day in which the talents and abilities of members are recognized and utilized within the Clubhouse;
· participation in consensus-based decision making regarding all important matters relating to the running of the Clubhouse;
· opportunities to obtain paid employment in mainstream businesses and industries through a Clubhouse-created Transitional Employment Program. In addition, members participate in Clubhouse-supported and independent programs;
· assistance in accessing community-based educational resources;
· access to crisis intervention services when needed;
· evening/weekend social and recreational events; and
· assistance in securing and sustaining safe, decent and affordable housing.
Origin of the Term “Clubhouse”
The word “Clubhouse” derives from the original language that was used to communicate the work and vision of Fountain House, the very first Clubhouse, which was started in New York in 1948. Fountain House began when former patients of a New York psychiatric hospital began to meet together informally, as a kind of “club.” It was organized as a support system for people living with mental illness
Membership
Membership in a Clubhouse is open to anyone who has a history of mental illness. This idea of membership is fundamental to the Clubhouse concept: being a member of an organization means that an individual has both shared ownership and shared responsibility for the success of that organization.
Membership in a Clubhouse gives a person living with mental illness the opportunity to share in creating successes for the community. At the same time, he or she is getting the necessary help and support to achieve individual success and satisfaction
Meaningful Relationships: The Core Ingredient
The ICCD Clubhouse environment and structures are developed in a way to ensure that there is ample opportunity for human interaction and that there is more than enough work to do.
Clubhouse staffing levels are purposefully kept low to create a perpetual need for the involvement of the members in order to accomplish their jobs. Members also need the staff and other members in order to complete the work, but even more importantly, the relationships that evolve through this work together are the key ingredient in Clubhouse rehabilitation. (Vorspan, 1986). The Clubhouse members and staff as a community are charged with prioritizing, organizing and accomplishing the tasks that are important to make the Clubhouse a successful.
Members and staff share the responsibility for the successful operation of the Clubhouse. Working closely together each day, members and staff learn of each others’ strengths, talents and abilities. They also develop real and lasting friendships. Because the design of a Clubhouse is much like a typical work or business environment, relationships develop in much the same way.
The role of the staff in a Clubhouse is not to educate or treat the members. The staff are there to engage with members as colleagues in important work and to be encouraging and engaging with people who might not yet believe in themselves. Clubhouse staff are charged with being colleagues, workers, talent scouts and cheerleaders.
