An evaluation of the ten friends diner: A collaborative community project

Evaluative data, from interviews and two psychometric scales, were gathered from 16 consumer-survivors employed at the Ten Friends Diner a community-b ased commercial enterprise in a large Canadian city. The scales were the Se lf-Efficacy scale (Scherer et al., 1982), and Social Contact scale (Donald & Ware, 1984). We also interviewed all advisory staff (N = 16) associated w ith the diner. Generally, longer periods of association with the diner were related to more favorable self efficacy and social contact scores. Qualita tive data showed that the consumer-survivors, as well as advisory staff mem bers, perceived the diner experience to have enhanced the consumer survivor s' sense of self-reliance and independence. Overall results seemed to suppo rt the benefits of cooperative commercial activities undertaken by persons with previous psychiatric involvement.