SAN ANTONIO - From job placement to lasting friendships - adults with mental illness learn how to tap into their strengths and abilities at the San Antonio Clubhouse.
"I wasn't able to get a job or anything," said Clubhouse client Robert Moser. That was then, this is now.
For about a year, Moser found a new outlook within the hustle and bustle of San Antonio's Clubhouse.
"Coming to the Clubhouse, I've learned a lot of skills. Before I came to the Clubhouse, I didn't know how to use a cash register, I didn't know how to do a lot of the things a normal job would require," said Moser.
For fourteen years, the Clubhouse has been teaching and training adults with mental illness to be something more than a diagnosis.
"Most of the people that come to the Clubhouse are people that have become very identified with their illness because they're reminded over and over again that they're sick. This is a place where you don't have to think about that, there's too many other things going on," said Clubhouse Executive Director Mark Stoeltje.
Most of the time, illnesses aren't even discussed as clients learn new skills and prepare for possible employment.
"Our folks want the same thing everyone wants. They want to work, they want to go to school, they want to have connections with family members," Stoeltje said.
Since San Antonio's Clubhouse has been so successful, other Texas cities are learning what it takes to build one in their own communities.
Representatives from eleven other cities are learning what this clubhouse can do, with an eye toward replicating the recipe for success back home.
As for Moser, he found a new passion working in the media lab and new friends to lean on.
"I kind of have a posse going. We hangout during the weekend and after hours, and hangout and have fun. Just because you have a mental illness doesn't mean you can't do something," Moser said.