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By Magnus Wallman, Director

“Today, we have a working and growing Clubhouse that provides hope, friendship and purpose for our members. Our dream had become a reality.”

In October, 2011 Fontänhus Motala began as an idea to help people living with mental illness find meaning and friendship in their lives. By May 2012, we had our own Clubhouse and our first members. Today, we welcome a thriving community of members to Motala Fontänhus!

How did we accomplish this? A group of us, intent on turning our idea into a reality, started by visiting 2 neighboring Clubhouses, Örebro and Nyköping. We received a warm welcome at both Clubhouses, worked alongside members and staff and toured the houses. We were all touched by the stories we heard from the members about their lives and the hope they had discovered in their Clubhouse communities. After these visits, we grew even more determined and excited to establish our own place in Motala.

In March, 2012, I spent a week at Fountain House Stockholm, where I learned more about how a Clubhouse operates and saw the importance of the equal, respectful and collegial relationships between Clubhouse members and staff.

In Motala, we invited politicians and local officials to information sessions. Over 90 people came and gave us very positive feedback. We recruited an advisory board representing employment services, insurance, healthcare and local authorities. We found a building and met with people interested in becoming members. On May 28, 2012 the first members came to our Clubhouse to work!

By Claire Le Roy Hatala, Director

“Our members often tell us how important it is to have a place where they feel welcome and valued.”

Our new Clubhouse in Paris––the first ever in France–– opened in November, 2011. Thanks to the support of Clubhouse France and the efforts of an amazing team, our dream has come to fruition!

For six months, Céline, Maëlle and the first 3 Clubhouse members (Allison, Jean-Jacques and Timothée) worked every day to make the opening of the Clubhouse possible. They accomplished multiple tasks: securing funding, finding the perfect location, organizing work and translating Clubhouse documents into French. We owe many thanks to Phillippe Charrier, President of Clubhouse France, for mobilizing economic, institutional and community support.

Clubhouse Paris is located in the very heart of the city, at the end of a leafy courtyard. Walking to the Clubhouse is always a pleasure. In addition to the daily work of the Clubhouse (cooking meals, administration, job search and event planning), we also provide leisure activities at the end of the day such as fitness workshops and culinary lessons.

We currently have 30 active members and the participation of our members is highly variable. Our members often tell us how important it is to have a place where they feel welcome and valued. Our Clubhouse is providing hope, friendship and purpose for our members and we are confident that we will continue to grow.

By Ruth Osterman, Genesis Club, Massachusetts

“What we know in the Clubhouse is we believe for our members until they believe for themselves…”

In 2012, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics found that employment rates for people living with mental illness declined from 23 percent in 2003 to 17.8 percent in 2012. So that means the unemployment rate for people living with mental illness in 2012 was 82.2%, up from an unacceptable 77%. People living with mental illness around the world are the most under employed and unemployed group of people. In the United States, people with mental illness are the largest and fastest growing group of SSI and SSDI beneficiaries.

Yet I look around Genesis Club and people living with mental illness are running the place. Sometimes more efficiently and for more hours a week than some of our people who are not living with a mental illness!

We have very strong employment services at our Club, we have a strong culture that believes in and supports work. But there are still a lot of challenges. Many of our members see themselves as not able to return to work and most live in poverty.

Our work with young adults led us to understand more profoundly why this is the case. We saw talented, smart young adults enter the mental health system and the first interventions of case managers and providers were to sign them up for SSI, Medicaid and food stamps. Thus begins the preparation for a life of poverty, a message that you won’t be able to sustain employment and a fear of losing what is intended to be a safety net – not a way of life.

We would rather put the time and resources into supporting every member to take control of their own income (rather than allowing the government to control it through entitlements) and find ways for every single member to be successful in the workforce to their fullest capacity. If you are living in poverty, getting a job is not a choice – it is the way out of poverty. And we think there will be a time in every member’s lives when they are ready to find their way out. Supporting members to manage the symptoms of their mental illness and build skills to succeed in the workforce is where we choose to focus.

As we have moved to talking about planning to come off benefits – again over a period of time, not as a point in time, members now think differently about the possibilities for their future. There is still a lot of fear, but mixed with possibilities.

Our world is missing out on the brilliant contributions that our members – people living with mental illness – are not yet sharing. With an 82% unemployment rate – that means millions of people are not involved in researching new discoveries, running businesses that keep the world moving, providing care and breakthroughs in the health industries, moving governments forward, and on and on. Thinking about that has changed our thinking about job development as well. We now approach businesses as partners who need the workforce that we have at Genesis Club – the untapped, skilled, eager workforce that needs an opportunity.

Clubhouse members have the supports and services to live the lives they intended while recovering from mental illness. None of them intended a life of poverty, but of course none of them intended a life with a devastating illness either. For a period of time, members may need to be out of the workforce and receiving support through entitlements until they feel ready to return. Most will return to the workforce slowly, with lots of support that they may no longer need as they gain confidence in their abilities to earn an income. Most can regain a foothold in the workforce that allows them to rise above poverty, control their own income and spend their days thinking about other things besides whether their benefits will be cut and maintaining a life of poverty.

Most of our members! – certainly many more than the 17.8% of people living with mental illness that were employed in 2012. What we know in the Clubhouse is we believe for our members until they believe for themselves – and at Genesis Club, we believe that despicable unemployment rate can be turned on its head and members can earn an income above the poverty level and take back their lives – even financially.

By Eva Yau, Clubhouse International, and Ashley Liu, Hope Clubhouse Member

“Hope Clubhouse has indeed provided me with a place to go, a right to meaningful work, a right to meaningful relationships, and a right to a place to return.” – Ashley Liu, Hope Clubhouse member

The need for mental health services is enormous in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), where there are 4.3 million people with serious mental illness. Developing Clubhouses in China presents multiple challenges:

• Funding has been difficult to sustain, especially in the initial stage. There is also a lack of coverage by national insurance and consistent government sponsorship
• We need to learn how to work with family members who may have a major influence on the recovery of members
• PRC is only in an initial stage of understanding the concept of recovery and rehabilitation. There is very limited knowledge and skills.
• Employment and educational opportunities are limited for people with mental illness due to stigma issues
• Due to the language barrier, it is difficult to communicate with the international Clubhouse community

Despite these challenges, we have experienced some major successes in bringing the Clubhouse Model to China:

• Five Clubhouses in Mainland China are registered as members of Clubhouse International
• Three have been successfully accredited
• There are five other developing Clubhouses in Changsha
• A review of all Accreditation reports shows significant compliance in the areas of employment, funding, governance and administration
• The General Office of the State Council, PRC has adopted the work of Heart Wing Clubhouse in the “Social Management Innovation Case Book”
• PRC Mental Health Law Explanation regards the Clubhouse Model as an innovative example of community psychiatric rehabilitation

By Criss Habal-Brosek, Progress Place, Canada

“We believe that clubhouse innovation in the community is the next frontier in helping to create system wide mental health solutions.”

Clubhouses are best described as places that improve the lives of people living with mental illness. We offer programs and services which provide opportunities for recovery through friendship, employment, education, housing and recreation in a welcoming and accessible environment of support, respect and dignity. We believe every individual would benefit from the sense of community that Clubhouses create, the sense of belonging, the feeling of social connectedness, and the empowerment that Clubhouses reinforce by focusing on individual strengths. It was this realization that helped us in recent years bring the Clubhouse values and philosophy into the broader mental health community. I am excited to share with you two projects that we initiated and developed, one is for adults who are 55 plus and the other is within a marginalized community for people of all ages.

We initially did a scan of the local senior services sector. We found that there were no senior services that included support for people living with mental illness, only for seniors living with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Then we consulted with neighbouring agencies that were working with seniors and suggested that together we develop a clubhouse for seniors. Our common goal was to bring services to a marginalized, underserved, high need community. We were successful in securing space to pilot a clubhouse for seniors within this area.

We continued to pilot the Seniors Clubhouse for 2 years while we submitted proposals to our funders. We were finally successful after two years and were given funding for a full-time position with funds for program supplies.

The Seniors Clubhouse started with a handful of seniors attending the program and now has an average daily attendance of 22 people. We have successfully created a community where people feel a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose and have made social connections. The space where we offer the senior program provides barrier free health access to all, children to seniors, ensuring that people have the opportunity for improved health, by coming to a welcoming and accessible community that provides social connectedness and encouragement for people to move forward in life. Progress Place is proud of this initiative as it pre-emptively opens an area of responsibility for clubhouses to develop creative options for seniors ready to transition from clubhouses into a dignified clubhouse alternative that operates based on a foundation of the values, philosophy and principles of the clubhouse movement.

Our second community initiative is located across the city in Mt. Dennis, an underserved and high priority neighbourhood. When we visited this community we developed a broad vision, one that would have a small clubhouse where people would have a sense of belonging, feel needed and wanted as well as have a place where health services could be accessed by everyone in the community.

We partnered with another service provider, and started a Service Provider Network. We drew a lot of attention from local service providers, residents and local politicians/funders. Progress Place took the lead and provided in-kind voluntary staff resources along with program supplies and opened the doors officially April 13th 2015. We started by having a few residents attend on a daily basis to having over 500 individuals participate to date. We have been focusing on building trust and the sense of community by offering access to computers, Wi-Fi, photocopying, faxing and use of a telephone. We have local agencies attending the Community Place Hub providing employment resources, helping with resume writing, job interviews, and workshops for newcomers on settlement issues, a peer nutrition program for single parents and children, a summer children’s program for 40 children, a weekly community coffee and on the list goes. We have built a rapport with many individuals who have shared that they are living with mental illness and need a place to go and something to do.

Both the Seniors Clubhouse and the new program, The Community Place Hub, are truly gratifying and exemplify the clubhouse values and philosophy of working in partnership, developing a sense of community that offers hope and belonging to various parts of the city by improving the lives of children, teenagers, adults and seniors. The Clubhouse model is the most empowering model in the world. It is time to be bold and be fearless; we believe that clubhouse innovation in the community is the next frontier in helping to create system wide mental health solutions.

By Colleen Cann MacKenzie, Crossroads Cape Breton, Canada

“Do not underestimate the power of friendship and the transformative power of work to be found in your Clubhouse!”

Crossroads Cape Breton was not thriving 5 years ago; especially in relation to our employment efforts. Our 2010 accreditation report described us as having “diminished energy and vibrancy” and “diverted from our primary goal of providing a strong and accessible employment function.” The message was clear… our clubhouse was DAWG TIRED in our employment efforts and something had to change if we wanted our clubhouse to really thrive.

We began the process of transforming our community and ourselves.

We “Rediscovered our Club” in 2012. We committed to creating a vibrant Work-Ordered Day, minimizing distractions from our true purpose and creating space for members to feel wanted, needed, and respected. New leaders within our community emerged with intent and pride.

We committed to training and to attending the Employment Symposium hosted by Fountain House. We surrounded ourselves with people in the clubhouse world who deeply understood the restorative power of work.

We decided to “go big or stay home”. Some of the largest employers in our local community became our target. Crossroads branded ourselves with T-shirts, slogans, logos, engaged in social media and claimed our place in the community in a larger than life way… No more quietly sitting in the corner for us! In 2014, we hosted a day-long Free Your Mind Wellness Fair & Talent Festival which brought our club into contact with literally thousands of people.

Crossroads Cape Breton has changed our reality. Our accreditation report from August, 2015 states: “Despite the very high unemployment rate, Crossroads has developed 5 new TEPs The Clubhouse exceeds the Clubhouse International Employment Guidelines benchmarks for members employed in supported and independent employment.”

Crossroads now has 11 TEPs and 3 Group Placements; 52 members worked last year. We have hired a Career Coordinator to further members’ career aspirations; we have weekly, club-wide employment & education meetings and our EE Dinners are our most spectacular and popular evening program. Our employment agenda has top billing in our clubhouse. We celebrate members’ efforts everywhere…

Crossroads now connects with groups of people who are in positions to make decisions: presidents, directors, government officials, etc. We let employers know that if they want work done well – if they like to partner with a strong, grounded organization that will help their business and serve a critical social purpose – that Crossroads is the answer.

Clubhouses have to do what needs to be done. Do not underestimate the power of friendship and the transformative power of work to be found in your clubhouse! We cannot afford to underestimate our role in the recovery members are experiencing. When we are struggling, we convince ourselves that employment is a luxury in our clubhouse – this could not be farther from the truth. Members working in jobs and careers that value them as individuals are the life blood of a clubhouse. Clubhouse International puts targets in place to make sure we remember how vital employment is to all of us.

If employment is one of the biggest struggles in your Clubhouse (and for most of us it is), do not sit by and accept the way things are. Aim not to survive but to thrive. Lead by example and build the bridge as you walk on it. Place one foot in front of the other, look into each other’s eyes, grab a hold of each other’s arm and move!