The Fairweather Lodge Program is a psychosocial rehabilitation model in which residents live together and run or participate in a business that provides them with employment. As of 2006, there were over 90 Fairweather Lodges in 16 US states.
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History
The Fairweather Lodge Program was developed by psychologist George Fairweather in California in 1963. Fairweather found that patients with serious and persistent mental illness were less likely (i.e., "community tenure" is longer) to require rehospitalization when they lived and worked together in the community as a group, rather than individually.
Lodge model
A typical Fairweather Lodge is an affordable dwelling for 4–8 people who share in running it. These responsibilities include performing domestic chores, buying food and preparing food. The residents make their own house rules and manage their own activities.
To provide employment, residents run a small business chosen by consensus and jointly planned. Alternatively, the lodge sponsor may provide employment to residents through its own business. Typical resident businesses can provide lawn care, custodial or laundry services, printing, furniture building, shoe repair, catering, or other services. The work is part-time or full-time, and organized so that one resident can readily substitute for another as necessary.
The sponsoring agency provides the lodge staff. The staff role is to mentor, advise, and mediate for the residents. Staff is always call for emergencies. Residents may hire professional consultants, such as accountants and lawyers, to assist with the lodge business operation.
The sponsoring agency sets the lodge eligibility criteria for residents and recruits them. However, the existing lodge residents must vote on accepting any new residents.
The sponsoring agency charges the residents for rent and operating expenses. However, some costs (such as mortgage payments or transportation costs) may be covered by county and state programs, and profits from the lodge business.
Program principles
1. The lodge must provide the residents a safe, healthy and caring environment that reinforces their recovery process. Residents must be able to tolerate the harmless individual idiosyncrasies of other residents.
2. The lodge must be a part of the overall plans for managing the residents' mental health symptoms and promoting their good mental health.
3. The sponsor must provide services to the residents if they want and need them. The lodge must permit open entry and exit for the residents.
4. Residents with psychiatric disabilities can increase their community success and raise their social status through employment, through accumulating wealth and through direct consumerism. Opportunities for promotion and rising to a higher status are provided.
5. Aide from their roles in the lodge business, residents need to have meaningful roles in both the lodge and the larger community.
6. A successful lodge resembles a healthy family. The lodge must have an ongoing method to handle daily living problems.
7. In order to progress, residents with psychiatric disabilities need autonomy that is commensurate with their behavioral abilities; their ultimate goal is full autonomy. The lodge must provide its residents with as much autonomy as possible.
8. The lodge must not depend on resources from any single entity, or on the good will of its host community.
Coalition for Community Living
The Coalition for Community Living (CCL) is the national organization that promotes the Fairweather Lodge program and monitors the lodge residents.
Each quarter, the CCL collects outcome data on each lodge to determine if it is upholding the principles of the Fairweather model. Specifically, the CCL wants to ensure that lodge members are safe and healthy, based on whether they have healthy diets and exercise regimes; whether they abuse tobacco, drugs or alcohol; and whether they are safe in the lodge neighborhood. The outcome data also tells the CCL if the residents have access to immediate psychiatric care, if needed.
The CCL gathers information on resident wages and earnings to ensure that they are earning a living. Other measures of success include whether residents are participating in civic responsibilities and social activities, and are sharing meals with each other (like a family). The CCL also monitors the staff hours at the lodge to ensure that its residents are as autonomous as possible.