Pathfinder Clubhouse

In august of 2020, Pathfinder Clubhouse officially opened, filling a vital gap in mental health services that empowers each member of Pathfinder Clubhouse with the knowledge, purposeful opportunities, meaningful work, and supports to live full and meaningful lives. Adults living with mental illness now have access to wraparound support services that address all social determinants of health and remove barriers while providing services of employment, education, housing, transportation, socialization, wellness, and life skills. The efforts of our members, board, and staff have gained national recognition and was honored to be hand-selected to present at the Clubhouse international world seminar.pathfinder Clubhouse is a radically different kind of program that engages its members (those we serve) in every aspect of running the Clubhouse, including all aspects of governing from strategic planning, board committee participation to policy making. All decisions withing the Clubhouse are made based on consensus, giving members the same voice as staff and leading to true equity and including within our agency. Programs are administered by members and staff side-by-side in their running and operations of the Clubhouse with bottom line responsibilities falling to staff and ultimately the executive director. This leadership shows in a culture of creating leaders throughout staff and membership by building up staff to help members find their own voice to collaborate side-by-side together to come to program decisions through consensus.

Resource center: the resource center focuses on side-by-side work with members in the operating of the Clubhouse. This unit prepares our members to return to paid work in office settings. We focus on data reporting, finances, social media, newsletters, donor recognition, receptionist duties, grant writing, orientation, and development. By volunteering for tasks, members learn employable transferrable skills that are in high demand in office settings. Members have been working in quickbooks building bookkeeping and accounting skills. As we approached the end of the year, we had the opportunity to gain more accounting skills around end-of-the-year reporting.

Employment: during 2023, we assisted 46 members in obtaining employment. The mission of Pathfinder Clubhouse is "recovery through meaningful work for adults living with mental illness." The entire evidence-based Clubhouse model is an intentional opportunity to build employable, transferable skills. The Clubhouse is designed around a work-ordered day that focuses on strengths, talents, and abilities. Each individual has a choice of what tasks they volunteer for each day and Pathfinder is broken up into work units to facilitate the work being done. We use the skills built by participating in the program to create a member's resume when they are ready to go back to work.clubhouse offers its own supported and independent employment programs to assist members to secure, sustain, and better their employment. As a defining characteristic of Clubhouse supported employment, the Clubhouse maintains a relationship with the working member and the employer. Members and staff, in partnership, determine the type, frequency, and location of desired supports. Our independent employment program helps members secure their own employment and Pathfinder provides supports behind the scenes to help members maintain employment. Those supports include reporting income, providing support around conflict resolution in the workplace, and employment workshops focused on maintaining employment. Our supported employment program helps members in preparing for employment by helping with resumes, filling out applications, mock interviews, and building skills. The level of support is completely individualized, and members choose the support they receive. Members who are working independently continue to have available all Clubhouse supports and opportunities as well as participation in evening and weekend programs.

Health & nutrition: our health & wellness unit focuses on building skills that can be both used for employment as well as at home. We prepare lunch each day from scratch so that our members can learn to handle and prepare fresh foods. We then serve our meals in restaurant service style giving our members the respect and dignity that comes from the restaurant experience while building employable skills around serving, bussing, food handling, and time management. We also operate a bistro where members can purchase (for $.50 or less) healthy snacks and coffee. Operating the bistro builds skills around customer service, cash handling, and food service. Our culinary program has been growing in participation and now that we are a partnering agency with the linn-benton food share, we are helping our members utilize items that are available in food boxes. Through this process, members are learning valuable inventory skills, food safety, prepping, preparing and skills in cooking health food, serving, storage, menu planning, budgeting, and ordering. Our health & wellness unit also partners with the farmer's market to double up their food stamps to purchase healthy fresh fruits and vegetables where members learn how to shop under a budget and then how to prepare healthy meals with the fresh and nutritious foods purchased from the farmer's market.