ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Residents in Olmsted County gathered at the 4giving Center Wednesday to discuss a potential addition to mental health care service in southeast Minnesota.
NAMI Southeast MN, Olmsted County and Vail Communities joined together to host a listening session on bringing a clubhouse to the county. Clubhouses are a model of mental health support, which started in New York in 1943.
“It’s a working community of shared interest and focus,” Senior Director of Clubhouse Programs and Public Policy for Vail Communities Chad Bolstrom said. “It’s a strengths-based mental health support recovery community that is oriented around trying to elevate the voices of the people with lived experience of a mental health diagnosis, to find and discover some of those strengths [and] to help take the next step in their recovery path.”
Vail Communities has three clubhouses in the Twin Cities area. The organization is part of the larger Minnesota Clubhouse Coalition, which aims to expand clubhouses across the state. NAMI Southeast MN Executive Director Megan Toney said she visited these facilities and was excited by the possibilities.
“I was so struck and inspired by what was happening when I was in that space,” Toney said.
While she said there are mental health facilities and resources in the southeast Minnesota region, there is nothing like a clubhouse to service those in need.
“Clubhouse is more than a drop-in center, so much more than a drop-in center,” Toney said. “It’s exciting to think about this model of recovery, of hope, of connection coming to fruition here in Olmsted County and what it would mean for the community members.”
The clubhouse administrators and members presented to Olmsted County residents, outlining how effective the clubhouse model has been for those who take advantage of it.
“It has changed my lifestyle,” clubhouse member Blake McManus said.
“When I go to Vail, I feel like I matter,” member Nishi Peters added. “Like, I have community, I have people who care about me.”
It’s a refrain Bolstrom has heard before.
“You hear stories again and again from members who talk about, ‘this isn’t just a place where I don’t get worse, but I actually get better’,” Bolstrom said.
According to documents at the meeting, funding for a clubhouse often comes from a mix of private and public sources.
There will be another open house on Mar. 25 at the Rochester Public Library. Any final decisions about building a clubhouse will have to go through the Olmsted County board.
Bolstrom says he hopes Rochester accepts this form of mental health support, even if Vail is not directly involved.
“Mostly we are invested in trying to help support this county and discover what they want a clubhouse to look like,” Bolstrom said. “If that means Vail, that’d be great. If that means some other way, we’d support that too.”
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