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. 2025 Jul;61(5):978-988.
doi: 10.1007/s10597-024-01438-5. Epub 2025 Jan 10.

Clubhouse Partnerships with Clinical Services: Current Status and Barriers to Integration

Jeanie Tse  1   2 , Kevin Rice  3 , Christopher D Landry  3   4 , Mackenzie Jenuwine  5 , Kinga Jedrzejczak  3 , Lori D'Angelo  6 , Daniel Skaggs  3 , John Delman  3 , Craig Bayer  3 , Gytis Simaitis  3 , Kali Rickertsen  5 , Elizabeth Ballard  3 , Francesca Pernice  5
Affiliations

Clubhouse Partnerships with Clinical Services: Current Status and Barriers to Integration

Jeanie Tse et al. Community Ment Health J. 2025 Jul.

Abstract

The Clubhouse model of psychosocial rehabilitation has supported the recovery of people with serious mental illness for over 75 years, but many of the roughly 350 Clubhouses are not well-integrated into the larger health care system, limiting their reach. This article examines Clubhouses' and psychiatric providers' interactions and experiences to understand the nature of and barriers to partnerships. The directors of Clubhouses affiliated with Clubhouse International were surveyed, examining their attitudes and practices around collaboration with psychiatric providers. To provide context, psychiatric providers were also surveyed regarding their understanding of and experiences with Clubhouses. Findings reveal broad support among both Clubhouse directors and psychiatrists for enhancing partnerships, despite current barriers, limited interactions, and the need for greater mutual understanding. Key considerations that emerged include the importance of maintaining the Clubhouse model's distinct non-clinical, community-based, and member-directed identity in any integration efforts.

Keywords: Clubhouse model; Community-based organization; Integrated care; Psychosocial rehabilitation; Social practice.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. No grant funding was used for this project; all authors are Clubhouse employees or members other than Mackenzie Jenuwine and Kali Rickertsen, who are graduate students at Wayne State University, and Francesca Pernice, who is their academic supervisor.

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