EVERY COMMUNITY DESERVES A CLUBHOUSE

Mental Illness can have a drastic impact on all areas of a person’s life —including family, relationships, job loss, failure in school and homelessness. In today’s broken mental health care system, people with serious mental illness (SMI) are not receiving holistic care in each of these areas. Current solutions typically focus on medication and housing but neglect to address social needs that keep people tethered to their communities. What’s often missing in mental health care —and what clubhouses aim to address —is the treatment of social symptoms. Social symptoms can include social isolation, social withdrawal, apathy and the absence of self-confidence and self-worth.

Much of the suffering experienced by people with SMI is often the result of their isolation in society. SMI can, and often does, spill over into the social fabric of people’s lives, causing a breakdown in social relationships, a detachment from society, family and friends, and stigma. Despite this, these social symptoms regularly go unaddressed.

With a clubhouse model, we recognize that for recovery to be achieved, attention must be paid to social symptoms, with a focus on community, and the entirety of a person’s well-being.

Research has shown that one year of holistic recovery services are delivered to Clubhouse members for the same cost as a 2-week psychiatric hospital stay. Criminal justice system involvement is substantially diminished during and after Clubhouse membership. Active Clubhouse members have fewer hospital stays as a result of membership in a Clubhouse program.

• Better employment rates — 42% at Accredited Clubhouses annually – double the average rate for people in the public mental health system public mental health system.

The Evidence:

A Systematic Review of Evidence for the Clubhouse Model of Psychosocial Rehabilitation

Keeping Clubhouses Open: Toward a Roadmap for Sustainability

Costs of Clubhouses: An International Perspective