Articles - FOCUS Clubhouse

The Community Effect: How Clubhouses for People with Serious Mental Illness Reduce Loneliness

Humans are innately social. We evolved from surviving through safety in numbers to joining together in common purpose and valuing, supporting, and caring for one another to feel that we belong and are not alone. And yet, levels of loneliness for Americans have risen high enough that the Surgeon General has declared loneliness an epidemic. For people with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder , and major depressive disorder, loneliness and accompanying isolation have even more severe ramifications.

Beyond Treatment: How Clubhouses for People Living with Serious Mental Illness Transform Lives and Save Money

This report contributes to the much-needed mental health reform efforts taking place at the national, state, and local levels by demonstrating how community-based social support for people living with serious mental illness can transform lives and save money, especially when including the full array of public and social costs. It does so by focusing on one form of social support — the evidence-based practice known as clubhouses, which research shows improves quality of life.

“Grateful to be alive”: Clubhouse programs take pressure off overwhelmed Texas mental health hospitals

When Jonathan Denhart was discharged from the psych ward at Austin Oaks Hospital last year, he was prepared to be back very soon.

For more than 40 years, Denhart has cycled through rehabs, sober housing, mental health hospitals, and 12-step programs to treat his bipolar and substance use disorders, but nothing worked.

The 60-year-old Austin resident couldn’t find or keep a job, and he knew once he left the hospital, the temptations of the outside world would be too much again.

As Denhart was about to walk out the door a hospital staff member stopped him and suggested he stop by a place called Austin Clubhouse to try a vocational rehabilitation program.