Clubhouse is an innovative, member led community based model for people with mental health difficulties. The Clubhouse offers life-long membership and support to members in leading a socially and economically productive life in the community. Clubhouse activities are focused around the  Clubhouses' work units and social programmes, governed by the Clubhouse standards The EVE Clubhouse Coalition was established in August 2004 and includes members and staff members from the seven EVE Clubhouses, together with representation from the EVE management team. The Coalition meets regularly and is hosted and chaired by each Clubhouse in rotation. 

In 1999, EVE established the first Clubhouse in Ireland in Newbridge Co. Kildare. Clubhouses for us represented the first step on our journey towards learning the true meaning of co-production and the value of member-led services. It taught us what we needed to do to take the Clubhouse Standards, a charter of rights for members, and put the governance/organisational systems in place to honour them for and with the membership. Twenty years on, we now have seven Clubhouses and the international peer-led accreditation process we subscribe to ensures we maintain fidelity to the standards and rights of our members. Those challenges and lessons have informed the service improvement journey for all our Clubhouses’ and our investment in practice development. 

Our Clubhouses continue to grow in strength and have invested their energies in accreditation to ensure fidelity to the Clubhouse International Standards (CI) with five accredited and the remaining two due to complete the process in 2020. This has been supported by the development of a mentoring guide by our Clubhouse Coalition and draws on the invaluable expertise of our trained member and staff member CI Assessors. In 2018, a co-produced project in which our Clubhouses mapped the CI Standards against the HSE Framework for Recovery confirmed the effectiveness of the model in delivering a robust recovery-oriented service. It also pointed to the need to develop some additional resources to better describe the nuances of each CI Standard. As a result, the Clubhouse Coalition has developed a Standards Checklist which summarises the measures you would expect to see in place to support the delivery of each of the 37 standards that govern the day to day operation of each Clubhouse. The project report Mapping International Clubhouse Standards & the HSE Recovery Framework: Mapping Principles in Practice (Webb et al 2019) and resulting resources guide EVE Clubhouses & the Framework for Recovery Mapping Principles to Practice: Best-fit Clubhouse Standards which meet the actions and measures required by the Framework for Recovery are available on the EVE website at www.eve.ie.