Hostel

Since autumn 2001 the Panhellenic Association of Families for Mental Illness –S.O.P.S.I. - has established a hostel for 10 residents who suffer from severe mental illness. The aim of this hostel is to provide temporary accommodation, where the necessary rehabilitation actions will take place in order to proceed to the social and vocational integration of the residents.

This hostel was planned as an answer to the persistent claims of many families-members of our association- who could not take care of and support their mentally ill relatives any longer because of death, ageing, illness or emotional reasons.

In contrast to the many hostels for institutionalized mentally ill persons that have been founded in Greece during the last years through the National Plan for the Psychiatric Reform of the Ministry of Health, our hostel can be distinguished by a couple of daring innovations: a) the residents are persons with mental illness, who have lived

in the community and not in psychiatric hospitals, b) the hostel is expected to have a large group of volunteers, mainly parents of mentally ill persons of our association, who will embrace the residents and support their social integration and c) the families of the residents are highly involved in the treatment plans.

The residents, who live in the hostel participate in all the daily routine activities, attend vocational programmes or work and join in a wide range of social activities. In addition, they have many responsibilities regarding their own rooms, cooking, spending money and leisure activities, taking into consideration each person's functioning.

The hostel is run by the scientific supervisor under the supervision of the Scientific Committee of S.O.P.S.I.