About Us

Walk-in Appointments
Same-day Suboxone & MAT
Telemedicine
Bi-lingual Services

Our Mission

Perception Programs promotes wellness through innovative and holistic behavioral health care for individuals and our community.

Our History

Since 1970, our dedicated staff has ensured accessible, culturally competent, individualized, and cost effective services for our clients and the community. We understand that each person has unique strengths and we help to build upon those strengths. By emphasizing trust, respect, confidentiality, communication, and compassion, we continuously strive to improve the quality of client care, while anticipating changing community needs. We provide group and individual treatment in both Spanish and English. We are a dynamic and responsive agency, committed to you!

We believe that addictions are biological, psychological, social, and behavioral disorders which can adversely affect a person’s physical, psychological, economic, spiritual, and social well-being. We also recognize that mental health disorders and criminal behaviors are often closely associated with each other and with substance use. As a result, we offer multiple treatment modalities, using evidence-based approaches to assist every client in developing cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social resources to live healthy lives.

Perception Programs is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-profit organization.

Executive Team

Jeffrey DiGirolamo
Chief Executive Officer

Board of Directors

Our Board of Directors, representative of the community it serves, works together to maintain the integrity and quality of our programs and services. They proactively assess the needs of our clients and encourage program evaluation. The CEO maintains an awareness of, and adheres to, all pertinent federal, state and local statutes, regulations and codes. Most importantly, they encourage client responses and evaluations so that we can strengthen our program design and planning.

Chair Emeritus
John F.B. Haney, MD, Retired, Medical Director, Natchaug Hospital

Chair
William Lugo, Professor of Sociology, ECSU

Vice Chair
Brian P. McCarthy, Owner, Home Selling Team Real Estate

Treasurer
Kelly Harper, Senior Manager, E&Y

Secretary
Donna McLaughlin

Members at Large
Janit Romayko, Retired, Director, Mansfield Youth Services
Roderick Wilson, Sr., RAD Computing, Owner
Donna McLaughlin, Retired, Audiologist, Speech Pathologist
Shamim S. Patwa, Director of Special Education, Mansfield

Marin K. Kurti, Associate Professor of Sociology, ECSU
Jennifer Mendes, Chief Behavioral Health Officer, Generations

WC-TAG Initiative

In July of 2018, PPI was chosen to participate in the Trauma and Gender Practice Improvement Collaborative. The 18-month TAG initiative included collaboration between the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the Connecticut Women’s Consortium (CWC), and providers. TAG promotes best practices in trauma-informed, gender-responsive behavioral health care in Connecticut by providing best practices, recommendations, tools, training, national/local experts, and networking opportunities. In July of 2019, we graduated after successfully implementing a host of new practices and initiatives. As part of our on-going commitment, we participate in a quarterly TAG Learning Collaborative and hold monthly steering committee meetings.

ALICE Training

ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) Training is the leading program for response to violent critical incidents (VCI). VCI are man-made forms of violent disaster, including active shooter, violent intruder, mass shooting, terrorism, workplace violence, and other unexpected tragedies. The ALICE curriculum provides action-based, proactive, survival strategies to prepare individuals in healthcare agencies for active shooter events. PPI, Inc. chose a blended learning implementation approach which included an eLearning course, live drills and the adoption of updated EOC policies that incorporate ALICE. We are currently working towards our certification as an ALICE agency.