Joanna's Lodge empowers people with mental illness in Illinois

From the Chicago Tribune:

An estimated 11,000 people with mental illness are living in nursing homes in Illinois. For many, those conditions foster helplessness and hopelessness, like they once did for Fern Kohley and John McCarthy.

But both people are in different places now. They live in a comfortable home across the street from a park in Winfield. It is Joanna's Lodge, a place that takes a somewhat unconventional but promising approach to empowering and improving the lives of people with mental illness. It's the only place of its kind in Illinois.

"At the nursing home, I was depressed and stressed out," said Kohley, 46, who lived in one for nearly three years and now works as a housekeeper. "Every day was boring. Now that I've got a lot to do here, I'm happier."McCarthy, 65, resided at a nursing home for nine years and now works as a candle-maker. "It's much better here," he said. "It's not as boring. There's a lot to do."

Activity is fundamental to Joanna's Lodge, a "training campus" where four to eight residents with chronic mental illness receive intensive training in life skills and team building for up to six months and then graduate to a home where they live together in groups of four. During their campus stay, residents learn, among other skills, meal planning, budgeting, medication and stress management, employment and social skills, conflict resolution and problem solving.

Lodge residents select a captain, treasurer, secretary and meal captain every week. Every day they hold member council meetings to discuss household issues of the day. By the time they graduate, they also must have a job.

"It empowers them to feel much better about themselves," said Susan Simonsen, executive director of New Beginnings Community Services, Inc., the organization running Joanna's Lodge. "Now, they have a purpose. They have a lot of self-esteem. They feel like an active member of society, and they deserve that."

Joanna's Lodge is based on research done in the early 1960s by psychologist George Fairweather, who earned his doctorate at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Conducting research among people with mental illness at Veterans Administration hospitals across the country, Fairweather found that leadership and problem-solving could be developed in small groups.

That work led to the Fairweather Lodge model, now in use in 10 states. The Winfield lodge became Illinois' first in April 2007, after administrators with the DuPage affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness bought the Winfield home.

"To me, there's such a pride in the people who live there," said Mary Lou Lowry, executive director of NAMI DuPage. Joanna's Lodge is named for Lowry's daughter, who committed suicide after a psychotic break in 2003. "They're always so warm and welcoming. They're so happy to be there, and when they move on, there's a huge celebration."

Research suggests the model is working, said Esther Onaga, an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University who worked with Fairweather. Onaga said people who graduate from Fairweather lodges return to mental health institutions much less frequently than those discharged from conventional institutions. Lodge graduates also hold jobs, a rarity for residents of more conventional homes, she
said.

In addition, Fairweather Lodges and the homes affiliated with them cost less to run than conventional homes for the mentally ill, Onaga added.

"The people don't necessarily love each other when they first get together," she said, "but, in the main, it becomes an intentional community of support."

Fairweather, now in his 80s, retired and living in Austin, Texas, is gaining more acolytes. But financial support remains a daunting challenge. Joanna's Lodge, funded entirely by private contributions, is struggling.

"So many times people with mental illness have been limited in not being able to follow their dreams," Lowry said. "So many have forgotten their dreams. We hope this will encourage them to get back their dreams and get back their lives."