Fairweather Lodge - Program Principles

Program Principles

1. The lodge must provide a safe, healthy and caring environment, which reinforces the recovery process. Tolerance of harmless individual idiosyncrasies must be established.

2. The lodge must be a part of the plan for managing symptoms and promoting good mental health.

3. Services must be available as long as the participant wants and needs them. Open entry and exit for consumers must be permitted.

4. People with psychiatric disabilities 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. Above and beyond economic roles, participants need to have meaningful roles in both the lodge and the larger community.

6. A successful lodge resembles a healthy family. An ongoing method to handle daily living problems needs to be implemented.

7. In order to progress, people with psychiatric disabilities need autonomy commensurate with their behavioral abilities, with the ultimate goal of full autonomy. The program must provide the consumers as much autonomy as possible.

8. Lodges must not be dependent on resources from any single entity. The program should not be dependent on the good will of the community in which it exists.

The Coalition for Community Living (CCL)is the national organization whose mission is to promote Fairweather Lodges. The CCL is currently collecting outcome data quarterly to measure whether existing lodges are upholding the principles of the Fairweather model. Information is gathered to ensure lodge members are safe and healthy based on whether they are eating healthily and exercising regularly, whether they smoke or use drugs and alcohol and whether they are safe in their neighborhoods. The outcome measures indicate whether lodge members have access to immediate psychiatric care if needed. The CCL also gathers information on wages and earnings to ensure lodge members are benefiting financially from the program by earning a living. Other measures of success include whether lodge members are participating in civic responsibilities, engaging in social activities, and sharing meals with their lodge mates like a family. Staff hours at lodges are also measured to ensure that lodges are as autonomous as possible.

As of 2006 there are over 90 Fairweather Lodges in 16 US states.