Co-Occurring Clubhouse
Co-Occurring Clubhouse
The Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) established the Co-Occurring Clubhouse Program in 2013 for youth with behavioral health needs and substance use or abuse issues. The co-occurring clubhouses are modeled after DBHDD’s Resiliency Support Clubhouse Program and a similar program within the Division of Addictive Diseases. Youth are often referred to the program through their core provider, schools, and other community outreach efforts. The expected length of stay in the clubhouse program is between nine and 12 months.
The Center of Excellence for Children’s Behavioral Health worked with DBHDD to develop a monitoring and evaluation plan to support continuous program quality improvement and evaluate the effectiveness of the co-occurring clubhouse on youth outcomes. The Center of Excellence accesses clubhouse youth-level data to monitor youth demographics, attendance and participation, satisfaction, and functional outcomes (including juvenile justice involvement, school enrollment, and mental health and substance use or abuse measures) on a regular basis. In addition to clubhouse level-data, the Center of Excellence team conducts interviews with caregivers of youth enrolled in the two co-occurring clubhouses every four months and facilitates focus groups with clubhouse staff to identify and understand the enablers and barriers to successful implementation of the co-occurring clubhouse model. Additionally, the Center of Excellence is using Photo Voice with youth enrolled in the clubhouse as a participatory method to bring forth the perspective and voice of the individuals most impacted by the clubhouse program.