Clubhouse: Family Project
The Family Project offers non-custodial parents recovering from mental illness a variety of supports and services. The Family Project is an integral part of the Clubhouse where, through advocacy, generalist staff work with non-custodial parents to rebuild relationships with their children, and empower them to re-establish identity as parents. Many parents involved with the Family Project have lost contact with their children as a result of their illness, and require legal consultation. The Family Project works closely with the Clubhouse Family Legal Project, another Family Initiative, to support parents fully in the achievement of their goals:
- Visitation Support – Options Clubhouse staff work with parents to plan visits that will be developmentally appropriate, interactive and pleasurable for parents and their children. Staff also provide supervised visitation and transportation to these visits.
- Parenting Education – Clubhouse staff and members help parents increase their understanding of their children, improve their parenting skills, and acknowledge the challenges of being a non-custodial parent, and the losses that both they and their children have endured.
- Liaison with Clubhouse Family Legal Project – Clubhouse staff facilitate contact and communication between parents and attorneys, in support of the parent’s journey to gain visitation and custodial care.
- Liaison with Department of Social Services (DSS) – Clubhouse staff and parents work together to facilitate a better understanding among DSS workers, of mental illness and its implications for parenting and family life, and a more mutually productive working relationship between DSS and parents.
- Parent Peer Support Group – Parents meet regularly to discuss the challenges of being non-custodial parents, sharing concerns, ideas and solutions.
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