Henrico-based Mill House helps brain-injury survivors find stability, friendship

Founded in 1999, The Mill House is a vocationally based rehabilitation program in Henrico that provides long-term intensive community-based services for survivors of brain injuries.

The Mill House was Virginia’s first Clubhouse model program for survivors of brain injuries and is a part of the Community Brain Services Injuries organization, which is the state-designated safety net provider for brain injury services.

“We know in our total community that we serve, there are approximately 50,000 individuals that are living with a disability resulting from a brain injury,” Executive Director Jason Young said. “About 36,000 of those are here in the Metro Richmond area. So brain injuries are a large disability population that doesn't have a lot of services and is not really talked about as a public health epidemic.”

Brain injuries are one of the least supported disability populations in Virginia, and yet the organization estimates that there are more than 250,000 Virginians living with a disability resulting from one, Young said.

“The cognitive deficits, the short term memory deficits, the executive functioning issues are commonplace after a severe brain injury,” Young said, “and the corresponding mental health, emotional behavioral deficits that go along with it, depression, anxiety, reduced frustration, tolerance, all that a person's going to carry with them and it's going to evolve after they leave the rehab hospital. That's the stuff that's really going to impact their kind of long-term ability to get back involved in their community in the maximum capacity as possible, and that's where our services help folks.”

The Mill House, which Young calls a “mistake-free environment,” assists survivors with finding housing and employment, as well as adjusting to a new life with complex cognitive behavioral deficits following their injury. But the friendships formed while in The Mill House is perhaps the Clubhouse’s most important function.

“The friendships that they redevelop and develop out of the Clubhouse is, that to me, is the magic of our Clubhouse services,” Young said. “Folks come in there initially and are very isolated, and they quickly become a part of something that is their community, and is a part of the community.”

The Mill House does not turn any prospective members away based on their ability to pay for its services; in fact, many survivors that attend the clubhouse pay just $1 a day, according to Young. The organization also aims to facilitate the process by connecting survivors with their services before they leave the rehab facility, and has recently developed a partnership with Sheltering Arms Institute.

“We're able to go over [to SAI] and meet with the survivor, sometimes a family member as well, tell them about our services, and kind of get them primed,” Young said. “They might not know they need it, they probably don't know they need it at that point when they're still in the hospital, because they're still really trying to maybe envision what their life is going to be like when they return home at night but to get that kind of warm connection going.”

The Mill House offers caregiver support groups for family members affected by their loved one’s new condition, as well.

“We've been around for 21 years now, and we’ve been serving families and caregivers that entire time, but it's always been through the lens of we're serving the person impacted by brain injury first, and the family is there as this huge support system,” Young said, “and we're involving them.”

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For details about The Mill House, visit https://communitybraininjury.org/mill-house/. To support the organization financially, visit https://communitybraininjury.org/support-community-brain-injury-services/.