What is Friendship Place?
Friendship Place, Inc. is a social, educational, and recreational outreach program for people with severe and persistent mental illness. It is designed to encourage participation in programs, activities, and opportunities both at the outreach center and
in the community.
http://friendshipplaceinc.com/
Friendship Place Oshkosh Pop-Up
Pop-up place is a three-month pilot designed to determine how a mental health outreach program will make a positive impact in the Oshkosh community.
We have a location in Neenah that has identified a significant need in Oshkosh. It's time to see what we can do to help the Oshkosh community.
Our Neenah location is a mental health outreach program for adults with severe and persistent mental illness. Their illness makes it challenging to keep a job or maintain close relationships.
Friendship Place ~ 220 N. Commercial St., Neenah, WI 54956
It is a domino effect.
They often engage in unhealthy behaviors like poor diet and exercise, bad financial decisions, and lack of social skills. A lack of time and resources means county case workers can't do it all, and members fixed disability income leaves them with few options.
That is, until they find Friendship Place.
Professionally trained staff at Friendship Place transform activities into informal opportunities for counseling and therapy through arts and crafts; cooking and nutrition lessons; recreational activities; life skills classes; and community outings to reconnect
individuals to their community.
Our members begin to feel whole again!
The goal is to gather data on the members using the facility and to hopefully open a Friendship Place Oshkosh in a permanent location.
Beach Building, 240 Algoma Blvd, Suite 100, Oshkosh, WI ~ Pop-up location ~ August 12 - October 31, 2014
Why a Friendship Place Pop Up Place?
Mental health is a "wicked problem" in our community. The Southern Winnebago Life Study's expert panel "shared their concern about untreated mental illness at great length, believing the issue has grown in significance in recent years."
The pop-up pilot project is designed to answer two questions: Where is the need? Is there support?
For three months, Friendship Place will actively explore the answers to these questions. A physical mental health outreach center will open its doors three days per week for approximately 5 hours per day. During this time, members will receive free access
to support and therapy groups as well as informal counseling and face-to-face help building their problem-solving capabilities.
After 3 months we will have:
*Qualitative data about the needs of the community and how we can address them.
*Quantitative data about the number of potential members and donors.
*Improved understanding of the ability to support an Oshkosh location.
*A solid foundation to evaluate how Friendship Place can best serve the Oshkosh community.
The impact of such services is huge! The average cost of an individual psychiatric hospitalization in our community is $1700 per day...the cost of services per member at Friendship Place is $23 per day!
We have just three months to make a difference. Statistics show us there is a need; but they can’t show your level of support. That's up to you.
Help us to achieve a permanent location in the Oshkosh community to reach out and serve adults with severe and persistent mental illness.
