WHAT IS A CLUBHOUSE?

The Clubhouse is an international, evidence-based program supporting adults with mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, substance use disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other clinical diagnoses.

 

The Clubhouse is not a treatment center.  Our services complement and reinforce the therapeutic treatment members receive from mental health providers and can serve as a critical stop-gap for those not yet undergoing treatment for their illness.

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The basis of Summit County Clubhouse is our uniquely supportive and collaborative Clubhouse setting, where members rebuild their self-respect, dignity, and abilities through education, productive work, and meaningful relationships.   In treatment settings, adults with mental illness are labeled “client” and considered “disabled”.  Summit County Clubhouse turns this all around.  Here, through our Work-Ordered Day, members and staff work side by side as partners, operating all aspects of the organization in a team approach based on mutual respect.  In this way, a person who has struggled with mental health becomes a valued participant, a colleague, and a critical part of the Clubhouse community.  

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And it's working!  SCC members report reduced hospitalization and incarceration rates, fewer symptoms of illness and isolation, higher employment rates and a strong sense of community.  Since 2019, Summit County Clubhouse has been proving that people with a diagnosed mental illness can lead normal, productive lives when treated with respect, dignity, compassion and understanding. 

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The Summit County Clubhouse is deeply committed to following the Clubhouse International model of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, a highly successful evidence-based program that has developed over more than seventy years. There are approximately 320 Clubhouses spread across 32 countries today.