Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Joel Corcoran: Welcome, Needed, and Valued: The Clubhouse Approach

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Send us a text Clubhouse International is transforming lives through intentional communities where people with mental illness rebuild their lives after disruption and isolation. Joel Corcoran joins us to tell the Clubhouse story. • Clubhouse International operates 377 clubhouses across 32 countries using a specific 37-standard model • Members voluntarily participate in work-ordered days that provide structure, purpose, and skill development • Employment program achieves 40% employment rate compared to national average of 15% for people with mental illness • Education support helps members return to school at all levels from basic adult education through advanced degrees • Members receive assistance with housing, healthcare access, and rebuilding social connections • Clubhouses reduce hospitalizations, criminal justice involvement, and early mortality while improving overall wellbeing • Members determine their own level of participation based on their needs and recovery journey • Future goal is to triple the number of clubhouses by 2030 to reach more isolated individuals Visit clubhouse-intl.org to find a clubhouse in your community, take a tour, volunteer, or advocate for expanded mental health resources.   https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World, Humanity Over Hankus, the Silent Crisis Special Event. Today we're joined by Joel Corcoran, executive director and CEO of Clubhouse International,

a global network of over 370 clubhouses across 32 countries. Clubhouse International provides individuals living with mental illness, a supportive community, offering opportunities for friendship, employment, housing, education, and access to medical and psychiatric services in a caring, safe environment. Joel is here to share insights about this transformative organization. Thanks for coming on. Sure. Could you give us an overview of your organization, your responsibilities, and the goals you have?

I'm the director of the CEO of Clubhouse International, and Clubhouse International is an organization that is committed to ending isolation, both economic and social, for people living with mental illness, in particular people living with serious mental illness. And the way that we do that is by helping to grow the number and the quality of Clubhouse rehabilitation programs, a rehabilitation program called Clubhouse. A clubhouse is an intentional community. It's a voluntary place where people living with mental illness, again, by and large, people with serious mental illness, but anybody with a history of mental illness is welcome. It's designed to be a community that is rich with opportunities for people to rebuild their lives and reclaim their futures after having him so dramatically disrupted by an illness. People living with mental illness are typically separated from many of the things we all take for granted. They get marginalized and they've usually not finished school, but not always. they've had their early lives interrupted in most cases they lose family they lose friends they lose

access to employment or money and a lot of times maybe the worst thing is they lose hope for the future so the clubhouse is this place where people who are typically not welcomed in other places are not only welcomed but they're welcomed and needed and given repeated opportunities to participate to engage with others to rebuild social networks but the clubhouse it's more than that it's an opportunity system. So people, when they come to us, they're usually not at their best. They're usually been dealing with the difficulties of mental illness in many different ways. And when they come to us, they're looking for help or they're looking for a place to be safe and welcomed. And we provide that. That's really important. Yes, that sounds really good. What else do you

help them with? Beyond that, the clubhouse provides so many opportunities that help people rebuild their lives. First and foremost, it's a comfortable place to be. You can come in and just have a cup of coffee, if you want to, just talk to somebody or just sit if you want to. You can also get help accessing needed services, health care, mental health care, social services. While the clubhouse doesn't provide any kind of a treatment or clinical services, it certainly helps. Community helps each member. That's what we call people who come to Clubhouse as members, helps each member access any kind of health care or social services they need, whether that's finding a psychiatrist or a therapist, or maybe it's getting primary care physician or getting access to housing.

You can get that kind of help in a clubhouse. In addition to that, the clubhouse, again, is a community of people. So when you bring people together, there's a lot of work to do it. You have to answer the phones. You have to keep the place clean. You have to feed people. You have to plan and organize everything. So there's always work to be done in a clubhouse.

So members are given the opportunity to participate in that work as much as they want to or as little as they want to. Do you find the participation to be good with all the members? many times people living with mental illness are happy to be given the opportunity to contribute to others or to an organization again. That's an important part of coming and belonging somewhere. Even beyond that, the clubhouse has this opportunity system that helps people return to education, whether that be basic adult education, college, university, certificate, degree or advanced degree programs, whatever the person's goals are. The clubhouse will support that person both at the clubhouse

or on campus if needed and wanted. In addition to that, the clubhouse has an extraordinary employment program. People living with mental illness in this country, there's young employer rates about 85% or 15% of people living with mental illness are employed. At our clubhouses, about 40% of the people who participate at a clubhouse each day are employed in jobs in the community, integrated into businesses with all kinds of employers, pay the prevailing wage and are given the opportunity to start to build a career and to do things that they want again.

And that's important to a lot of people living in the mental owners. If you talk to folks, one of the top two or three life goals is usually I want to have a job where I'm getting paid, where I can contribute, where I can do something important. And so clubhouses have aggressive and successful employment program. There's also an evening, weekend social program to help people rebuild social connections. When your life gets disrupted by mental illness, you often lose your friends and your family and your connections. and far too often people are alone, living in an apartment alone or living at home with their parents

and not able to come out and participate in the world. So having that social network again is really important. So, Tony, when you say, what do we do? We provide this over-the-top support for people living with mental illness and give them repeated opportunities to build success and to recover. And we do it in a way where we're sharing the work. There's a small professional staff that works at clubhouses, but they work as colleagues with members,

and members of the clubhouse, people living with mental illness are involved in every aspect of it. That shared work is what we think is restorative, and that's the crux of what our program is, being part of something with other people and contributing to the success of the group while at the same time building success for yourself.

How long has the clubhouse been in operation, and what's this history of development and growth? That's a great question. The clubhouse started in 1948, so over 75 years ago, in Manhattan, with a single clubhouse, a group of people who had been released from a state psychiatric hospital began to gather in New York City where they lived. They recognized each other from the hospital, and they formed an organization to help each other. They didn't want it to sound like a psychiatric program and get a stigma associated with that. So they called it the Juana Society, W-A-N-A, and that stood for We Are Not Alone.

And the concept was we're stronger and more likely to build success when we're working together rather than going in alone. They formed this club, this society, which eventually, with the help of some wealthy volunteers who were committed to helping this group of people, they bought a building that had a fountain in the backyard, and they renamed themselves Fountain House. Fountain House was the first clubhouse operating on 47th Street, Manhattan, and it's still there today. Very successful, it's the model for all other clubhouses. That's how it started. It grew over 30 years and then began to get the attention of other mental health advocates, both public and private, and began a training program that was funded by the U.S. government, the National Institute for Mental Health, and began to train other organizations and states and eventually outside the country. When the clubhouses began to be successful and grew, it was time to create a second organization. So Fountain House together with some of the other clubhouses created what is now Clubhouse International. You kind of beat me to the punch. question was, is it regional, national, or international? So you've answered that. It's international. So can you expand on how many there are and where they might be? Today, there are 377 clubhouses

in 32 countries on all six continents, across six continents, I should say. They're about 220 in the United States and another 150 outside the United States. That's great. That's really good to hear what an impact you were making. Now, are all the clubhouses around the world modeled in the same way and of course the way that they work with the people that are members the answer to that is yes the clubhouse model of psychosocial rehabilitation is a very specific model although the word clubhouse is general in lots of programs or organizations might say club or clubhouse the clubhouse model is very specific it's been developed and organized and improved over 75 years the clubhouse operate on the basis of 30

37 best practice standards, the international standards for clubhouse programs. And these programs, these standards describe how we work with each other, how we treat each other, what the opportunity system is in a clubhouse, how clubhouses are structured, how clubhouses are governed, what the business of a clubhouse is. And so these 37 best practice standards were consensually developed by clubhouses, meaning members, people live with mental illness, staff, people who volunteer on boards. These standards were developed and they're updated every two. two years, a rather cumbersome but important process of seeking consensus about what are the best

practices. And they were first promulgated back in 1989 and have been updated every two years since then. Clubhouses are trained on the basis of these standards and evaluated on the basis of these standards. If you go to any clubhouse in the world, you'll find the standards posted on the wall or on the tables or part of the meetings where people are talking about all the time. For example, the first standard clubhouse membership is a voluntary and without time limits. When someone becomes a member of a clubhouse, they do it because they want to. You can't get too sick or too healthy to be a member of a clubhouse. Once you have a clubhouse, you can always use that clubhouse.

And people do. They use it a lot when they need it most, and they use it less when they don't need it so much. When someone says they need help, what's the process to bring them into your supportive environment and setting up resources to help them rebuild their life and pursue. the vision they originally had and hopefully can attain again for their future. There's a clubhouse in Worcester, Massachusetts, called the Genesis Club. And they started as saying a number of years ago, they said, we have wide doors to come in, but we had even wider doors to go out.

And that's a simple answer to your question. At clubhouses, it's intentionally very simple and straightforward to become a member. There's no testing, there's no assessments. You don't have to earn your way into a clubhouse. You don't have to get the permission of anybody or any program or anything. If you have a history of mental illness, you're welcomed into the clubhouse. So members come to the clubhouse in many different ways. Some members are referred by a medical professional, a psychiatrist or a therapist or a primary care doctor,

some by social workers or case managers or school disability offices. And many members are self-referred in what you can do to come to a clubhouse. And it's typically someone else who had the benefit of the clubhouse, tell her about it. When someone comes to the clubhouse, they might email, they might come knock on the front door, they might call by telephone, but they're invited to come for tour. Every clubhouse runs tours where they introduce people to how the clubhouse works. They'll walk you through the clubhouse, show you how it all works. And if you have a history of mental illness and you're interested in being in a clubhouse, typically you can become a clubhouse

right away, like that day or that week. It's very easy. There's not waiting lists typically at clubhouses. And so someone just has to express an interest in being a member and have a history of mental illness. To answer your question about getting out, it's all voluntary. So you can leave anytime you want to. You can participate as much or as little as you want to. But the systems that I was describing earlier, going back to school and finishing your education and building self-confidence again and developing a plan for what's next in terms of a career or family or where you want to live, the clubhouse helps with all of those things. The supported education program at a club house is designed to meet people where they're at, learn what their goals are, and then help them

access, whether it's financial help for school, whether it's finding the right school, the right major, getting through a tough class structure, seeking reasonable accommodation from the school if that's needed. The same thing is true in employment, over-the-top support in many different ways to help members find and return to employment and then be successful in employment and get on a career path if that's what they want. If someone has a real problem with homelessness, and their housing being at risk. The clubhouse will get involved and help people get that stabilized and figure out what their goals are around the housing and help them achieve that. So there are a lot of ways out of the clubhouse in terms of getting back. The whole mission of clubhouse is to help people

live successfully as integrated and valued members of society. Are there any accommodations at the clubhouse where if someone is in dire need of a place to stay, that there's something temporary for them, like if they're going to school or anything along that line? Clubhouses are not residential programs. So nobody lives at the clubhouse. Clubhouses are very involved with helping members who need housing, get that housing, and keep it and improve it. So they'll run supporter department programs or work with other housing programs in the community if people need that kind of house.

So put that aside, the residential stuff, there's a lot of help with it, but people don't live at the clubhouse. But that concept that you described of being able to use the clubhouse while you're going to college, the answer. to that is yes, think about it like a health club. A health club has all kinds of services. There's cardio sometimes, there's yoga, sometimes there's a steam room. There might be weightlifting or other kinds of stretching classes or any of those kinds of things. A lot of things can do in a health clubs. When you join, you pick what you want to use and you might change your mind. You might come

to the clubhouse a lot and any time you might go a lot because you want to or you might just go once in a while. You get to pick and choose how that works in your life. Members get to pick and choose how they use the clubhouse. As I said, when people first come, typically they're not at their best. It's pretty common for people to be really struggling and be separated and isolated and lonely. And sometimes people will use the clubhouse every day. People, when they go back to school, they may only come in a couple of times a week to check in with friends or get help with something, or they may use that most clubhouses will have some kind of system to help with tutoring or studying, but the member will pick what works for them. Sure, that makes sense. So could you describe when a member

first walks through those doors. What do they see first? How is the clubhouse laid out? Can you give us a little bit of a visual on how the clubhouse is laid out? Well, that's an interesting question. If you go to any clubhouse in the world, if you know what a clubhouse is and you walk into any clubhouse, you could go to one in Tokyo or Pristina Kosovo or London or Detroit or Richmond, British Columbia. And you know that you were in a clubhouse because there's a lot of things that are very similar. But clubhouses might be, in a large office type building, a commercial building. They might be in an old Victorian home.

They're clubhouses that have purchased or leased. Buildings formerly used as firehouses or anything. So it can be any kind of a building. Typically, when you walk into a clubhouse, there's going to be one or more people right there at a reception desk or reception area who are saying, Hi, Joel, welcome. Welcome to clubhouse.

Do I help you? And that's for two reasons. One is just to remind people that they are welcome there It's a place that they belong, but also it makes sure that the people who come through the door are people who get the help that they need, whether it's someone who's visiting and wants to learn about a clubhouse, or someone who just wants to find out what's going on in that building, or if it's a potential new member. So there's somebody right there at the door always who can help someone. And then the clubhouse space is usually divided up into sort of the functions of that clubhouse, how that clubhouse is organizing. And oftentimes that has to do with size.

Any clubhouse, you'll find a kitchen and a dining room, usually a commercial. size kitchen, a clubhouse that has commercial appliances and those kind of things. The average daily attendance at a clubhouse is around somewhere between 35 and 45 people a day. And some clubhouses have as many as 300 people a day, and some clubhouses have as few as 10 or 15 people today, depending on the community and the size of the community and the age of the clubhouse. At every clubhouse, you're bringing people together so there's food service and so there's a kitchen and a dining room. Now, what about electronics? Do you have a room focused on that as well? There's usually some kind of a business or administration or communications room where people are doing work on computers, maybe putting out a newsletter, maybe reporting to the funding source on statistics and things they need to, planning the schedule for the next week.

Typically, the clubhouse will be divided into what we call units. A typical clubhouse has some kind of a clerical unit, some kind of a food service unit. Oftentimes clubhouses will have employment or employment education units that are designed around helping to support people with education and employment. Clubhouse might have a space that takes care of the facility. And members gather in those units. They choose where they want to work. There's a small staff. So they'll be spread out amongst the units in the clubhouse.

And every day, during the day, we have what's called the work order day. So if you came in between typically nine and five, you'd see people organized around doing work. If you're in an office-based unit, you'll be doing office work. If you're in a food service unit, they'll be doing a food service. If you're in a facilities unit, you're doing that, there might be a horoculture unit that's growing food for the clubhouse and taking care of the landscaping and all of that. So there's voluntary work going on.

I remember I said the work is what is restorative. So people sharing work and doing it is the concept you would see people working together. That sounds like a really great environment. If you would, expand on the duties of the staff members and how they interact with the members. The role of the staff person in a clubhouse is to engage members, to get to know them, to build a relationship with them, And doing that through shared work is really important. So you'll see people in the kitchen. You won't see people off of one quarter by themselves. You'll see people working at a table together,

sharing the work, planning the work. If you see a group of people planning evening and weekend activities for the coming month, they'll probably be sitting around a table together sharing that work. Clubhouses like to use whiteboards. They put everything up there so that anybody who comes in can see what's going on and what work opportunities there are. So you'll see that. You'll see modern office equipment. In our clubhouses, we talk about making the place image enhancing. So it won't look like a poor underfunded social service program. Most clubhouses will be the furniture, what's hanging on the walls, the condition of the building, of the property, always image enhancing, fresh and new and modern, working with equipment that they might be working with when they're out employed. They might be gaining new skills. So there might be a media

unit where many clubhouses do podcasts, for example, or make videos, a weekly or daily television shows to keep everybody informed about what's going on at the clubhouse and what opportunities are. So you'll see people working on those kinds of things. The other thing you'll see is people treating each other with a tremendous amount of respect and dignity and care because the clubhouses are caring community. It's really very impressive to see how people treat each other with such positive regard and make sure that each other's okay, making sure that people are invited to engage in whatever activity is going on there. So you'll see people treating each other very nice. nice. That's a really impressive statement. What areas do you usually find a clubhouse?

When we talk to a new group about building a clubhouse, we say, you want to have your clubhouse in a place that is easily accessible. Typically, people who are members of clubhouses are living at or near or below the poverty line. You want to be where there's public transportation, where people can get there. So we want to have easy access to employment opportunities. I know I keep coming back to that, but employment is a cornerstone. of the Clubhouse model. We want people to be able to access employers, so businesses or public services, or we have folks that are employed in government offices or in libraries or at the local big box store, a law firm, or accounting office who have people working in jobs where they're being

supported there. So the Clubhouse needs to be reasonable access to those kinds of things. You want it to be a safe neighborhood. Again, think about the phrase image enhancing. In my work before I became the director of Clubhouse International. I was involved with opening three different clubhouses. Their addresses were 209 Main Street in one city, five, ten main street in another city, and 44 main street in another city. So you can see where I think clubhouses belong. Yeah. And that makes great sense. Now that brings up another question. How long have you been with Clubhouse? I started at 1986 working at Clubhouse in Hyannis, Massachusetts. So I've been doing that. I've been at Clubhouse International since 1995 and the Executive Director-C-CEo since 97.

What are your projections for Clubhouse's growth and expansion over the next three to five years? Do you foresee it becoming significantly larger than it is currently? Tony, I appreciate that question. For our first 30 years, we spent a lot of time helping new clubhouses grow and go and building a training program that you talked about. There was a consistent training program at our 12 training centers around. the world. We also have a quality assurance program. It's an formal accreditation program. So establishing that and then building a very tightly net network of clubhouses across the world. We spent a lot

of time doing that. But as we approached our 30th anniversary, we started thinking, okay, where are we going? What's next? Why do we see it going? And when I say we are board, our staff, our members and staff, we're in leadership positions with our organization from clubhouses around the world. We all could agree on one thing, that there aren't nearly enough clubhouses in the world, that the pace with which we're growing, while steady and good, has been too slow. There are millions and millions of people who need access to the kind of supportive community that a clubhouse is in the opportunity system to help to recover and rebuild their lives. We do not think that we're going fast enough. So our focus now is on accelerating the growth and development of clubhouses. And so while we have

377 clubhouses today, we were at 340 when we were talking about this. And we're hoping to triple the number of clubhouses by 30-30 across the world. We are seeing. a growing interest in clubhouses. There's so much evidence out there supporting clubhouses as an evidence-based effective practice. There are academic studies as well as government reports that are showing that clubhouses reduce the need for use of more expensive services like hospitals and emergency services or emergency rooms. They reduce criminal justice system involvement for people with mental illness, increase housing, increased general well-being. People living with mental illness typically die 15 to 20 years earlier than people without mental illness, usually because of

undiagnosed comorbid health care conditions that go undiagnosed because a person's mental illness either prevents them from participating or reasons of stigma or discrimination or maybe fear on the person's part or economics. And so close does do a lot to help people address those well-being and healthy lifestyle. There's a lot of evidence out there showing that. So it's a unique time where public and private mental health advocacy organizations and service organizations are recognizing the value of clubhouses. And we're getting a lot of attention that's coming and say, we need clubhouses in our community. 30 new clubhouses open and joined Clubhouse International last year. We are working now to accelerate public awareness about what a clubhouse is, how Clubhouse International works to support clubhouses,

and giving communities access to training and information so that they can start their own clubhouses and join our network of support. We're optimistic about the future. Our vision is that one day clubhouses will be as commonplace in the world as boys and girls clubs and YMCA's and senior centers. We think every community needs a clubhouse, just like those organizations are needed. And that's what we're working towards. That sounds really, really good. Now, we've covered a lot of things, but what would you like to tell our listeners that they need to know that you think is very important for them to understand about what you're trying to. do with clubhouses around the world?

I think it's a couple of things. I'll do it briefly, but first, I was reading a newsletter this morning, our newsletter, a member of Clubhouse called Mosaic Clubhouse in London. Her name's Helen. She wrote a little piece in there describing herself, and she talked about being in and out of hospitals from the time she was in her teens in early 20s and just feeling completely disconnected to the world. And she said when she came across Mosaic Clubhouse, that all changed, that just being

welcomed and being able to use what Mosaic Clubhouse had to offer at her own pace. I think she said, I was able to dip in and dip out as I needed. And now I'm back on a good path. And she said, I'm now working again. I said, I want to tell me about that when I talked to him because that's the experience we're talking about here. So I want people to remember that. There was another member who told me once a long story about his life and how his

life was disrupted by mental illness later in life. And he lost a good job and a home and a family, even though he had been educated. at Yale and worked in school of business. He had to go home and live with his mother in Milwaukee. And he lived in his basement for three years, for him to come out and to talk to other people. And eventually, after a lot of encouragement from therapists and supporters, he tried the local clubhouse there, Grand Avenue Club.

He said to me, he said, Joel, I have a message for you. Something I hear often, he said to me, this clubhouse is great for me. And it literally saved my life. I don't think I'd be here today without it. And that's very common to hear from clubhouse members. But he said, I'm going to ask you a question. Other people were hanging around bus stations and on street corners, panhandling, or in homeless enclaves in cities.

I said, yeah, he said, a lot of those folks have mental health challenges or mental illnesses. I said, yeah, he said, those people would benefit from club houses. I said, they sure would. He said, that's not my message to you, though. He said, that's not where most of us are. Most of us aren't on the street corners and highly visible. Most of us are at home in our mother's basement, drinking coffee and watching TV all day and afraid to come out. Those are the folks we have to reach.

those are the people who need to know about clubhouses and benefit from those. And that's what Clubhouse is trying to do, is trying to reach all those people. Can you tell us a little bit about your website and what they can find on there? I would encourage people to go to our website and look at Clubhouse International and see what we do. There's a directory there. Look for a clubhouse in your community. And there's opportunities for you to assure people who you know might benefit from a clubhouse. Go for a tour yourself. See what the clubhouse is all about. Clubhouse has loved to give tours, maybe volunteer and join the local board or advisory board. There are a lot of things you can do. We have different advocacy actions all day, all year long. You can get involved with us

that way. We know everybody has a connection to mental illness, whether it's themselves, it's their family, their friends, their neighbors, their co-workers, their roommates. I'd encourage you to get involved, learn about what a clubhouse can deliver. And maybe the most important thing to remember is people living without mental illness are in fact people with all the same dreams and needs and wants and the potential to recover and rebuild a personally satisfied, engaged, involved, contributing life in the local community is there. Clubhouses provide a reasonable accommodation, which is for people with mentalists, which is over-the-top support and repeated opportunities to succeed.

I would encourage people to get to know us a little bit better. Yes, absolutely. Well, this has been great. Great conversation, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Totally, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about it. If I can tell you anymore, introduce you to a clubhouse. I'll let me now.

I certainly will. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com. Contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell everyone everywhere about why not me the world, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone, everywhere that you are not alone in this world.