After 25 years, Toowoomba Clubhouse is shaking things up

Discover the ground-breaking work Toowoomba Clubhouse is doing as it prepares to rebrand, knocking down barriers and shaking up the way we think about mental health support services in the process.

BREAKING THE CYCLE: Chief Executive Officer at Toowoomba Clubhouse (soon to be renamed Momentum Mental Heath) Deborah Bailey and clubhouse staff member Brendan Schumann discuss the new five ways to wellbeing program. Picture: Contributed

Deborah Bailey believes the way society addresses and treats mental health is very much a band-aid solution that aims to keep sufferers trapped in a cycle.

As chief executive officer of Toowoomba Clubhouse for several years, Ms Bailey said she saw first-hand how the system was failing people battling mental health daily.

“The way the system works right now, it might ‘fix’ patients for a few months to years and they might gain some useful tools, but ultimately it’s not setting mental health patients up for long-term success,” she said.

“Here at Toowoomba Clubhouse we ultimately want to do ourselves out of a job.

“We don’t want our members to be in the system long term or come to rely on a service for the rest of their life, caught up in a never-ending cycle.

“If our members become too reliant on the service, then we’re failing them.

“We want our members to grow and progress on and out of our service and on with their careers, family life, hobbies and interests and passions, the clubhouse is simply a stepping stone back towards good mental health.”

Toowoomba Clubhouse has been operating in Toowoomba for the past 25 years providing a range of programs and opportunities for members to access mental health employment, education, life skills, and other mental health services and support they may need.

Chief Executive Officer at Toowoomba Clubhouse, Deborah Bailey. Picture: Contributed

Ms Bailey said traditionally the two different facets of mental health care, the clinical and the non-clinical, had very different approaches and roles to play. This could be a struggle for the person accessing the different services.

“In the ideal world we want to look at the human as a whole person and treat their condition and get them back in the driving seat, taking control of their own lives again.

“Unfortunately the way a lot of mental health facilities are geared to work right now is more like an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff – it’s just there to pick up the pieces, but what we should really be doing is creating a system and culture to catch people at the top of the cliff before it’s too late.”

Ms Bailey said Toowoomba Clubhouse was hoping to continue to be that net for people in the Toowoomba community and beyond the Darling Downs region thanks to its new online programs .

“We are excited to be rebranding to Momentum Mental Health in the next couple of months to better represent the new services we offer and make people further afield aware of the opportunities we can provide them with.

“Come July we will no longer be known as Toowoomba Clubhouse, we will operate under Momentum which is great because we think the name encompasses the idea of addressing your mental health, learning new ways to live with it and then moving on with life.”

Toowoomba Clubhouse has 185 active members, all from different backgrounds and careers ranging from 18-80 years old with a wide range of mental health conditions, but until now they all had to have one thing in common.

They all needed a mental health diagnosis in order to access a support service.

After 25 years, Toowoomba Clubhouse on Russell St is rebranding to Momentum Mental Health.

Ms Bailey said Momentum Mental Health was making enormous headway by removing this barrier.

“This is a very unique move for a mental health service because up until now if you have wanted to access a service generally you’ve had to have evidence of a mental health diagnosis by either a general practitioner, mental health nurse, psychologist or a psychiatrist

“But once we rebrand as Momentum we will no longer require a diagnosis, we will only require members to identify that they want to work on their mental health, that’s got to be the primary reason you want to use our services.

“We don’t believe we need to ask our members to prove they are suffering with depression, anxiety or whatever it happens to be; the bottom line is the people who come here have found our service. They’ve had the courage to call up and cross the threshold, that’s enough demonstration from our perspective to show us they want to work on their mental health.”

Ms Bailey said Momentum would be providing a new evidence-based campaign called Five Ways to Wellness, which encourages mental health sufferers to take up five types of behaviours and everyday activities people can do to promote good emotional, spiritual, social and psychological health. This includes connecting, being active, continuing to learn, being aware and helping others.

“This is a really great program that focuses on flourishing versus languishing because we know there are going to be some members who come to us with persistent mental health issues they will be dealing with for the rest of their life.

“Not everyone’s conditions are curable and many people who have a history with mental health will probably have to work at it through several different stages of their life, there’s no quick fix which is why the Five Ways to Wellness campaign is brilliant.

“This isn’t simply about patching people up and sending them on their way, but about connecting people with the tools and resources they need to battle their mental health demons the next time they come to the door.”