The Village provides a comprehensive range of mental health and substance use recovery services designed to help adults overcome challenges, make lasting positive changes, and manage and reclaim their lives.
Our approach to behavioral health care is client-centered, meaning that we focus on our clients’ unique needs and goals. Our multidisciplinary team of mental health professionals collaborates with clients to develop a personalized treatment plan tailored to their specific situation. We recognize that different aspects of health are interconnected—physical health can affect mental well-being, and mental health challenges often go hand-in-hand with substance use.
We provide treatment for a wide array of issues, including addiction, anxiety, trauma, PTSD, grief and loss, adjustment issues, parenting challenges, life transitions, gambling, and more. As a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC), Village clinicians are specially trained to ensure services can be geared toward veterans, military personnel and adults in the 50+ age bracket.
Whatever the challenge, we are committed to helping our clients overcome it. We meet them where they are on their journey and walk alongside them every step of the way.
Meet Ian
Ian Dugan has come a long way since he first moved to Hartford eight years ago. His story, once clouded by challenges with substance use and debilitating anxiety, has transformed into a powerful one of hope and recovery. Today, Ian is not only thriving but also helping others along their own paths to healing.
For much of his life, Ian struggled with alcoholism, compounded by anxiety and depression. When coping with everyday life became impossible, he knew it was time to seek help. He turned to The Village for intensive counseling and therapy, where he began to strengthen the coping skills that would guide him on his journey to recovery.
Over the past eight years, Ian has sought treatment from The Village at various points. He participated in The Village’s Behavioral Health Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) and Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT), which were instrumental in helping him overcome addiction and reclaim his life.
“Before The Village, my life was unmanageable,” Ian said. “I’ve had my ups and downs, and since then my life is a lot better now than it was before. The Village has been a rock of support in my life for the last eight years in different ways.”
One of the most significant factors in Ian’s recovery has been consistent accountability and knowing that The Village is always there if he needs to reach out again. He is able to breathe easier because of the progress he has made in managing his anxiety and challenging the false beliefs that once held him back.
Before The Village, my life was unmanageable. The Village has been a rock of support in my life.
“One of the worst parts of anxiety was the fear of the anxiety itself,” Ian says. For years, he feared being overwhelmed, unable to control his feelings or reactions to situations. “My anxiety had me avoiding a lot of things, but now I don’t. Being able to do everyday things without fear is liberating.”
Ian’s journey has taken him from self-isolation to confidently sharing his story. He is now able to serve at his church and speak in front of the congregation.
A testament to his journey is how he handled a recent traumatic event. During his lunch break, Ian was attacked in a random act of violence, resulting in a wound across his face. Instead of resorting to old coping mechanisms—substance use, isolation or withdrawal from others—Ian drew on the coping skills he has honed.
“I’m active in my own recovery, [and use] the tools I learned at The Village,” Ian said. “It’s changed the way that I respond to stressors. If this had happened a few years ago, I would have had a lot of resentment built up, a lot of bitterness, a lot of anger. The fact that I can go through something like that and it’s not really having any negative impact on me is a testament to what The Village has helped me achieve in my life.”
Ian’s success in his recovery has also translated into his career. Today, he works in the social services sphere, where his lived experiences allow him to connect with others who are in positions similar to where he once was.
“I always tell them if I can do it, you can do it,” he said.