Founders House of Hope

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Founders House of Hope is a 97 bed residential care center providing psychosocial and psychiatric

rehabilitation programing for consumers living with Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic

Disorders and Mood Disorders.  Residents are admitted to Founders from inpatient psychiatric

programs in Los Angels and Orange County, in addition to the VA in Long Beach and Los Angeles.  

 

The services provided by Dr. Levy at Founders House of Hope include the following: 

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  • Supported Employment

  • Hope and Optimism

  • Assertion Training

  • Vocational Rehabilitation

  • Social Skills Training

  • Impulse Control

  • Self-Esteem Building

  • Building Resilience

  • Relapse Prevention

  • Symptom Management

  • Community Reintegration

  • Social Problem Solving

  • Creative Expression for residents pursuing artistic and writing talents

 

The psychosocial rehabilitation program and skill building groups are designed to increase our 

resident's capacity to manage their illness and increase level of functioning, build self-determination

 and enhance quality of life. 

 

The program goals include building self-empowerment, self-determination and self-sustenance.

Our consumers tend to feel neglected and socially isolated making it difficult to generate a positive

evaluation of themselves.  The focus of the program is identifying capabilities and interests, developing

vocational skills, consumer strength, instilling optimism and enlarging our consumer's identity from a

one-dimensional to multi-dimensional identity and our services are seen as an evolving process.

 

The services represent reservoirs of hope.  All elements of the program contribute to creating a

therapeutic milieu and environment of social caring.  A unique model of self-empowerment

and reinforcement for effective decision making leading to increased life satisfaction is promoted

in daily programming.

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  • Program Objectives

 

  • Maximizing choice, increasing skills and competency and providing unconditional support.

  • Focusing on the consumer's aspirations and on the consumer's preferred level of intervention.

  • Instilling hope and vision that consumers can grow with and in their community.

  • Dedication to consumer empowerment and involvement of consumers in aspects of service

  • delivery. A strong commitment to improve the programs at Founders; developing innovative

  • skills basedgroups that foster desired change in the lives of consumers.

  • A strong commitment to achieving outcomes.

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  Community Reintegration

 

  • Laguna Beach outing to the sea lion rescue and a picnic 

  • Picnics at Seal Beach (residents also get into the cold water)

  • Annual BBQ at El Dorado Park

  • Dinner outings to Belmont Shore in Long Beach

  • Participation at NAMI Walks at Irvine Regional Park

  • Visits to local museums

  • Day long outings to San Diego and La Jolla

  • Riding the Amtrak to San Juan Capstrano

  • Super Bowl pizza party

Founders Documentary:   Beyond the Shadow of Mental Illness
Part #1
Part #2
Elijah shopping at Costco for Founders Annual BBQ

In this illuminating, intimate documentary portraying individuals with schizophrenia and mental illness, viewers witness how the mentally ill are managing their illness and leading self-directed lives at Founders House of Hope, a residential care programs for the mentally ill.   The documentary is remarkably honest as it follows residents sharing how their broken lives have been reconstituted at Founders. The courage and defiance to not surrender to their illness is revealed when a resident celebrates the publication of his autobiography titled Beyond Psychosis. In powerful candor, residents share how mental illness has not taken their life away, but presented complex challenges enabling them to discover more about themselves and their resilience. Misconceptions about mental illness will be corrected in this documentary and the effects of being marginalized and socially stigmatized will be appreciated in an acute way by viewers.  The film’s existential elements reveal how residents draw meaning and purpose in life from the psychosocial rehabilitation activities at Founders.  The pull for their creative expression in metaphor, and in the form of art, poetry and songwriting reveals in a magnificent, authentic medium how life is forever altered by incurable mental illness.  A resident in the film sums up his life through the title of his poem Tamed with Understanding.