For an Oak Bay mother, it started when her teenage son developed stomach aches every morning, when he needed to get up for school.
Within a year, the difficulty going to school, something the mother assumed was part of an adolescent phase, became chronic, a daily, ongoing battle with mental illness.
The Oak Bay mom, who asked not to be named, said her son went from a happy, Tolkien-reading, soccer-playing kid with lots of friends to a teen whose battle with anxiety prevented him from sitting through a movie or concentrating long enough to read a book.
“Sitting in a movie, he would just get up and leave 10 minutes into the film, and he couldn’t cope,” the mother said. “It was just too much stimulation, too many people.”
Panic attacks and anxiety meant friends disappeared from his life. He avoided parties and sports. He graduated Grade 12, but only with extreme difficulty, and almost refused to walk up and receive his diploma. There was no dance and no parties.
Now in his mid-20s, he has been unable to hold a job, pursue post-secondary education or begin building any of the social bricks necessary to create an adult future.
“He is ALONE. Put that in capital letters and underlined,” the mother said. “And he is invisible, without a voice, so I am doing the speaking for him.”
This determination to speak for her son and stand by him brought the mother into contact with others like her, and they formed a Victoria group, Moms Like Us. They also started speaking out for their children, using their numbers to amplify the call for help.
On Wednesday, to battle the isolation of their children, the mothers will meet politicians, public servants and health officials. They hope it will begin the process to bring a new program to Victoria, Clubhouse International.
The Oak Bay mother said she believes that unlike other programs in Victoria, a clubhouse setup would help her son begin building a supportive network of peers and pals.
Dave MacDonald, executive director of Pathway’s Clubhouse in Richmond, said the program originally began in the 1960s in New York City. It has grown to 350 clubhouses in 28 countries around the world, including two others in B.C.
The clubhouse allows anybody to become a member, MacDonald said. All you need is clinical confirmation of a history of mental illness and signed confirmation you are not a danger to the community.
Members — they are not called clients — are given help with things such as housing, home life, keeping appointments, education and employment.
The transitional employment program, designed to get members out into the community and earning a living, is the cornerstone of the clubhouse program, MacDonald said.
It works by arranging with an employer for clubhouse to take on an entry-level job, such as janitor. The employer then trains a clubhouse staff person to do the job.
That staff person then arranges for a member, someone who has a mental illness, to take over the job and trains that person. And for the next six to eight months, the person with mental illness does the job, but with the support of the staff person.
So if the person with mental illness is too groggy from medication to show up for work, the staff person covers. If the member has an important appointment with a psychiatrist, the member again covers at the job.
The employer gets a guarantee from clubhouse the job will be done. And the member gets support with trying to get into the workforce.
“For the employer, it is a good deal because they train a staff person once,” MacDonald said. “And it’s good for a member because they can develop work habits as well as job skills, being punctual, dress, hygiene, social skills.”
After the six to eight months, the job passes to another member, who gets trained again by the clubhouse staffer.
A clubhouse member might go through several transitional jobs, MacDonald said. Afterward, they might find a job on their own. But they are always welcome at the clubhouse.
They might even restart an education. Clubhouse will help with applications for schools or scholarships.
“Just because somebody has a mental illness, it doesn’t mean they want to spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers,” MacDonald said.
The clubhouse provides a subsidized meal, every day, with members working in the kitchen and waiting and clearing tables. It also offers social outings.
Pathways in Richmond has 20 paid staff members, MacDonald said. It also has a membership of about 350, with about 60 to 70 people walking through the door every day.
It operates on a yearly budget of $2.6 million from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Housing, the City of Richmond and charitable foundations.
MacDonald said the clubhouse is proud of the results of a recent audit, one that specializes in non-profits.
He said a good social return is $2 to $5 for every dollar granted to a non-profit operation. Pathways clubhouse in Richmond, however, was deemed to return $14 to the community for every dollar.
At this point, a clubhouse for Victoria is very much at the initial planning stage.
But Lisa Helps, a Victoria city councillor already familiar with clubhouse, said the financial return demonstrated in Richmond makes it an attractive proposal for Victoria.
“There is, of course, always limited dollars, so there is a real challenge,” Helps said. “So in times of so-called fiscal restraint, governments are always looking for programs that are innovative and cost-effective.”
So what she heard about the clubhouse in Richmond made her enthusiastic.
“I mean, talk about social integration and upstream-prevention approach to mental illness,” Helps said.
She said she spoke with mothers and Moms Like Us and was close to tears.
“Just the fact so many of these mothers don’t even want to use their last names out of concern for their children is heartbreaking,” Helps said. “Cancer is not a stigmatized illness, but mental illness is.”
To contact Moms Like Us, leave a message at [email protected].
To learn more about Richmond Pathways Clubhouse, go online to richmond.cmha.bc.ca/about-us.