The Clubhouse Family Project

Being a parent requires 100% focus and energy. Being a parent with mental illness requires even more. When mental illness zaps your strength, your focus and your energy, you need a support system and you need the skills to move forward — past the difficult episodes.

A leading edge program, the first of its kind in Massachusetts, the Family Project recognizes that many adults with mental illness are also parents. Never before have parents with mental illness been encouraged to find the road to being a successful parent while recovering from the throes of mental illness. Often, parents who find themselves recovering from mental illness lose custody of their children and some even lose contact.

The Family Project helps to maintain a healthy family unit and aid those Clubhouse parents who are at risk of losing custody of their children because of their own need for support.

Based on the Options Clubhouse Model, The Family Project offers parents the opportunity, support and nurturing environment they need to become effective, capable and independent parents.

With The Family Project, parents with mental illness gain the 24-hour support they need to keep their family unit together and create an environment where both they and their child(ren) thrive.

Family Project Meeting

Parents who are members of the Club come together and exchange views, opinions and stories of experiences of being a parent with mental illness.

Meeting the Needs of Parents and Children

Employment Options offers an array of rehabilitative and residential support services that help parents gain the hands-on learning experience they need to acquire and use their parenting skills:

• Visitation Support - Enabling parents without custody to maintain their visitation schedule by providing transportation, oversight and parenting skills.
• Parenting Education - Teaching parents with mental illness the parenting skills they need to offer emotional support to their children while giving themselves the nurturing they need to recover.
• Home Visits - Being on-site for parents during difficult periods throughout the day such as preparing for school and work, transitioning back from school or work to home, discipline and developing regular routines.
• Service Coordination - Ensuring both the parent and child(ren) receive and attend the services they need and that these services, in turn, meet the needs of the family unit.
• Liaison with Department of Social Services - Facilitating a better understanding of mental illness and its implications on the family unit and daily life.
• Parent Support Group - Offering parents a weekly support group aimed at families with mental illness, enabling parents to share problems, ideas and solutions.
• Advocacy - Working with families to gain the services and opportunities they need to thrive.

Top of Page