by Ralph Bilby
Presented at The Fourth International Seminar on The Clubhouse Model - Seattle, Washington on XXX, XXX, 19XX.
We've been talking about the ethics of our clubhouse world, our value system. Of course, these discussions do leave room for differences of opinion among well intentioned people. Clubhouse-based Transitional Employment, now something like thirty-one years old, seems to be broadening yearly in its definition, even in our clubhouse world.
Sometimes I fear that TE will become so over-extended as to encompass any program that might have time limits. I ran across a program in New York a couple of months ago, calling itself Transitional Employment, that placed disabled people for three months, at the end of which the employer chose who they liked and let the others go. Perhaps not very rehabilitative for those not selected, but certainly transitional.
For us at Fountain House, and for a lot of you I know, our value system dictates the shape of TE. One of the things that always strikes me in reading John Beard's early writings on TE is the recurring emphasis on disregarding a member's past. This means a kind of unconditional forgiveness if you will. Hospitalizations don't count, things done when a member was ill don't count, even day program involvement can't be the only deciding criteria in considering members for placements. The ethics of forgiveness is the basis for insisting that the Clubhouse determine which members will have a placement opportunity, rather than have the company make the selection based on competitive interviewing. We extend that ethic to the belief that repeated placement opportunities are a right of membership. That's a heavy program responsibility indeed, about which I'll have more to say shortly.
A related TE ethic is the presumption that the members have vocational problems. Unlike many programs in which "job readiness" implies that a person has worked through their vocational problems, Clubhouse-based TE presumes they have not. In fact, we see repeated TE placement as one of the primary vehicles through which those problems can be faced and resolved.
If we all agree on these premises, (and I think we basically do), of discounting the past, assuming vocational problems, and having shared a vision of all the members who want to get a chance to work, our challenge becomes one of developing a TE system in our own clubhouses that gives the broadest range of members the best possible opportunities to work.
At Fountain House, the basic, no-frills placement system encompasses theses features.
There is a final, really central element in the no-frills clubhouse-based TE model, that must be discussed. It is the idea that responsibility for placement management should be shared by the regular day program staff. This is in opposition to the idea of a separate TE staff within the clubhouse, a kind of referral system if you will. A few of the many reasons we believe this to be a central necessity include:
Let me exemplify our experience with the potential negative effects of TE as a separate referral system within the clubhouse on one of our big placements, here we have 28 slots, we briefly tried a full time staff worker spending most of his days on-site. Shortly after he left the program, we learned that he'd been telling company supervisors that he would do a better job "if only Fountain House would send him better people". That's certainly not a message that gives members the best chance at success. We now use two staff workers, based in day program units, who share that responsibility on a part time basis, and we rotate them fairly frequently.
Beyond the theory and ethics of Clubhouse based TE, there is the practical dilemma of how to get enough of the right placements to realize the vision of repeated TE-opportunities for every member who needs them. You perhaps remember from this same plenary session in New York two years ago, the comments of Elaine Abromowitz-"and then, out of the blue moon, I got the job"-that Elaine. She didn't work on that placement long, nor on the next two she tried, but six months ago we developed a combination that for the first time she's been able to sustain. Elaine's working at a central distribution warehouse for a company called Hoffritz. Her job is price tagging, using little peel-off tags for small items like scissors, knives, etc. Sit down, $3.73 an hour-God I love those seven jobs. What's made it especially workable for Elaine has been a three hour, three day a week shift, something we haven't much tried before. Reflecting the less than half the usual hours of our normal placements, as well as the special problems and limited opportunities for the members working at Hoffritz, we're extending the length of time for this placement to 12 to 18 months. That comes out to about the same hours worked by a member on a 20 hour a week, six-month placement.
Hoffritz certainly has opened our eyes to the real possibilities of employment for this traditionally minimally engaged group. Last week, we approached the Hoffritz management with a proposal for a group placement that would bring 12-15 members together on a Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 2-5 shift, with full staff coverage to assist with supervision and work set-up. Using several staff workers, those limited days and hours would allow us to maintain our day program staff clubhouse connection, and at the same time revive the old tried and successful TE variation of the group placement. Our vision is to develop three or four Hoffritz type placements that would serve from 40 to 50 members in this most disabled category. It may well be necessary to start such placements as seasonal projects, with the eventual goal of establishing permanent slots. If that's what it takes, then that's what we'll do.
There are a lot of lessons, and not a few ethics, from the experience of Elaine and her Hoffritz placement co-workers. Perhaps the most powerful is the truth that just because people don't look functional doesn't mean they aren't.
