ICCD is a global resource for communities creating solutions for people with mental illness. We help communities around the world create ICCD Clubhouses, which are community centers that give people with mental illness hope and opportunities to reach their full potential. Established in 1994, ICCD is a non-profit and non-governmental organization.
Our vision is that there will one day be ICCD Clubhouses in the cities and towns of every country in the world. It is our hope that all people with mental illness will have access to the support of an ICCD Clubhouse, which can provide them with the encouragement and assistance they need to lead successful lives, and be fully engaged as citizens of their communities.
The ICCD Clubhouse approach is holistic, inclusive, sustaining, responsive and cost-effective. It provides:
ICCD is a global resource for communities creating solutions for people with mental illness. We help communities around the world create ICCD Clubhouses, which are community centers that give people with mental illness hope and opportunities to reach their full potential. Established in 1994, ICCD is a non-profit and non-governmental organization.
ICCD Clubhouses are founded on the realization that recovery from serious mental illness must involve the whole person in a vital and culturally sensitive community. A Clubhouse community offers respect, hope, mutuality and unlimited opportunity to access the same worlds of friendship, housing, education and employment as the rest of society.
ICCD promotes the start up, development and strengthening of ICCD Clubhouses; oversees the creation and evolution of standards; facilitates and assures the quality of training, consultation, certification, research and advocacy; and provides effective communication and dissemination of vital research and information.
The International Clubhouse Community
Every day throughout the world, people with mental illness face the enormous challenge of living with a condition that has interrupted their lives and often stolen their hopes and dreams. In every country, every city, and every town there are people with mental illness.
For many years, these individuals had systematically been denied the opportunities due them as citizens in their communities, and were relegated to the margins of society. In recent years, with the advent of improved psychiatric treatment options and rapidly developing community mental health systems, this situation has gradually begun to change. We finally are coming to understand that a person with mental illness can live, work and participate in their community − just as any other citizen can.
Sixty years later, Fountain House is vibrant and growing, and has become the template for the “ICCD Clubhouse Model” of psychiatric rehabilitation, now flourishing around the globe.
Today, there are more than three hundred ICCD Clubhouse programs operating in 27 counties around the world. An ICCD Clubhouse is a comprehensive center of support and encouragement for its members (people with mental illness). Over the years, Fountain House, along with all of the Clubhouses modeled after it, have continuously demonstrated that people with mental illness can successfully live and work in their respective communities. Key to this success is an environment of support, acceptance, and commitment to the potential contribution and success of each individual regardless of the severity of his or her illness. ICCD Clubhouses are places to which people can “belong” as contributing adults, rather than as full-time “patients” who are there only to be “treated”. The ICCD Clubhouse is a place in which members and staff works side by side in all aspects of the day’s work.
ICCD Clubhouses also offer an array of specific services from which members can choose as their needs and life goals evolve. Members can take advantage of daytime programming, vocational rehabilitation, employment opportunities, housing support services, case management, social and recreational programs, supported education, advocacy and crisis response services.
ICCD began in June 1994 to serve as a global resource to the rapidly growing international Clubhouse community. Our vision is that there will one day be ICCD Clubhouses in the cities and towns of every country in the world. It is our hope that all people with mental illness will have access to the support of an ICCD Clubhouse, which can provide them with the encouragement and assistance they need to lead successful lives, and be fully engaged as citizens of their communities.
