Clubhouse programs take pressure off overwhelmed Texas mental health hospitals

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Texas News

Mental Health,General News,TX State Wire

Thousands of people are discharged from Texas mental health hospitals yearly, and so-called step-down programs like clubhouses can help them integrate back into the community. Texas has contracts with seven clubhouse programs located in Richmond, Austin, Plano, Dallas-Fort Worth, Richardson, Houston, and San Antonio.

AUSTIN, Texas — When Jonathan Denhart was discharged from the psych ward at Austin Oaks Hospital last year, he was prepared to be back very soon.

Today, Denhart has been sober for more than a year and works in the snack bar for around six hours a day at Austin Clubhouse, passing out coffee and snacks. He said the work has given him a renewed sense of purpose in life that had been missing.Mike Tyson’s fight with Jake Paul has been postponed after Tyson’s health episode

During the fiscal year that ended in August 2023, the program had only facilitated the transition of 23 people from state hospitals, most of them people waiting to have their competency restored to stand trial in a criminal case. His newfound freedom and the allure of Russian clubs, eventually turned him into an alcoholic. He dropped out of medical school, and said his girlfriend left him due to his drinking. By the time he migrated to the United States in 2011, settling in Texas, he was dealing with depression and anxiety due to his addiction.

Cardenas, the Austin Clubhouse director, said the feeling of being a burden is common among people with mental illness, and those who are hospitalized often have trouble integrating back into society. She said this leaves a lot of people with severe mental illness relying on disability or Supplemental Security Income to survive.

This was an unconventional idea in the medical world at the time, but as the years went on, the movement grew into a worldwide network after receiving a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health in 1977 to establish a training program that others could adopt to create their own clubhouse facilities. Today there are more than

“The clubhouse gives people a chance to connect and learn how to socialize and feel love and support,” she said. Johnson-Carson credits the clubhouse program with helping her graduate last year from Austin Community College with a recreational therapy degree. She is ready to help others, but said her attachment to the clubhouse will never fade.

 

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