News and Events

Lafayette Street Clinic In Hartford Now Open!

The Root Center is proud to announce that our Lafayette Street construction is complete! This new facility will replace our longest-standing clinic, Doctors Clinic on Main Street, and bring staff and patients a newfound sense of brightness, dignity, and strength. On Thursday, March 13th, we had a successful Grand Opening ribbon cutting ceremony for our newest clinic, conveniently located at 35 Lafayette Street in Hartford.

This new clinic has expanded parking, state-of-the-art design and architecture, and we hope, will one day also offer primary care services. Root Center is looking forward to offering patients a network of care with familiar staff who fully understand their treatment needs in relation to their recovery. We believe it is important to treat each patient as a whole!

Special thanks to everyone who has supported the Root Center and our mission. Our board members, community legislators and leaders, media partners, and, of course, our staff. We know this new facility will go on to help so many patients, and is a long-awaited upgrade from our Main Street Clinic.

Check out this video below from our ribbon-cutting ceremony!

When we opened our doors to patients on June 23rd, everyone was thrilled to see the facility again, now buzzing with nurses, counselors, and other patients. We are so honored to be able to offer a facility like this to our patients, staff, and community members. We believe the environments people receive their care matters just as much as the care itself. We are committed to offering every person that walks through our doors a high quality experience of compassion, excellence, and personal growth. Thank you to every person who has supported us in this mission, and continues to support us every single day!

Nonprofits Putting Fore Nonprofits

Root Center Charity Golf Tournament to benefit Saint Vincent de Paul Middletown

Dust off your clubs and get ready to hit the links! The Root Center is excited to announce our first-ever CHARITY GOLF TOURNAMENT.
 
However, this charity golf tournament won’t be to benefit Root… on September 25th, 2025, we are excited to announce that we will be hosting a charity golf outing at Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, CT, to benefit St. Vincent de Paul Middletown.
 
Root Center feels strongly about nonprofits supporting nonprofits, and we are thankful for the work St. Vincent de Paul Middletown performs to help the residents in our state, particularly in Middletown, where Root Center proudly operates two sites. Many Root Center patients benefit from their critical services, and we are proud to support such an important mission helping some of the most marginalized members of our community.

Interested in sponsoring, donating, or playing? Click here to learn more.

Recovery City Documentary Screening!

This year, for Women's History Month, to honor the strength and resilience of women, the Root Center hosted a screening of a new award-winning documentary, Recovery City, featuring the powerful stories of four Massachusetts women battling substance use disorder and fighting for recovery.

We rented the Parkade Movie Theater in Manchester, Connecticut, and filled theater seats with staff, board members, and community members for this moving film and insightful Q&A segment with the director and some of the wonderful folks featured in the film. Special thanks to director and producer, Lisa Olivieri, and fellow cast members, for coming out to meet us and show your film to our community!

Community Forum | Burnout: More than Just Stress

This June, we also hosted another successful Community Forum on Burnout. 

Burnout: More than Just Stress, was a wonderful, insightful, and at times even funny conversation about occupational and personal burnout, shifting legislature, personal coping strategies, systemic changes, the effect of burnout in children, and so much more!

Special thanks to our panelists for their insight and expertise:

Samantha Alzate LCSW, - Owner of Mindful Transformations.

Brent Heineman, MD/MPH - Psychiatry Intern at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Christian Damiana - Public Policy Manager at Mental Health Connecticut, Inc.

Dr. Cassandra Holinka, PsyD - Clinical Psychologist & Assistant Professor of Psychiatry.

Jay Lasser, M.D - Founder of The Center for Work Stress Reduction.

Kristine Olson, M.D., M.S. - Chief Wellness Officer for Yale New Haven Health.

We expect our next forum to be this fall, check our socials for more details to come.

Advanced Recovery Institute

As a reminder, our Advanced Recovery Institute (ARI) is an entity of the Root Center for Advanced Recovery that is committed to research and training to elevate clinical care. ARI is responsible for events like our Community Forums, our research endeavors, and our monthly Clinical Grand Rounds. 

Clinical Grand Rounds

Our 2024-2025 Clinical Grand Rounds will be wrapping up this month with our final presentation on June 26th. Each month, we host leading speakers from across the country to deliver presentations on important topics regarding mental health and addiction. All recorded sessions can be found on our YouTube Page.



Our 2025-2026 session will then start on July 17th, so keep an eye out for new topics you might be interested in and register for presentations here. We will release the new lineup on July 1st.

These presentations are virtual, free, and open to the public. You can receive Continuing Education Credits (CEUs) for $10, and CEUs are FREE for Root staff members.

Clinical Updates

May is National Nurses Month, and every year, we honor a new Nightingale Award Recipient. Special Congratulations to Jill Mulvey, RN, in New Britain, for being Root Center's 2025 Nightingale Award recipient for excellence in nursing! The Nightingale is the highest honor and distinction that a nurse can receive. We are proud of all Jill has done for our patients and her team members. Jill has made a clear impact in her tenure at Root, and we can't wait to see how she continues to grow!

Check out this clip below to learn more about Jill or take a listen to this Recovery With Root Podcast Feature here!

Our Washington Street Clinic Celebrated 1 Year in Middletown!

Can you believe it? Root Center has officially been operating Middletown's first and only methadone clinic for more than a year now! Congratulations Washington Street on your one year anniversary!

Last April, Root Center opened this clinic in Middlesex County, fighting against discriminatory and harmful zoning laws that had previously outlawed there being any clinics offering methadone within the city limits.



One year later, we serve more than 150 patients a day at this site, providing critical and compassionate care to a community that needed us close to home. We are so excited to have passed this milestone, and look forward to continuing to serve more folks for years to come.

Team Updates and Openings

Celebrating Pride with our Community

Did you see us at Middletown Pride? We had so much fun walking in the parade and celebrating Pride Month with our community! 



Root joins the Pride Parade every year, not just for the rainbows and cheering, but to show our communities and patients that they are safe and accepted in any of our clinics. Middletown Pride is the largest Pride celebration in Connecticut, and with so many people coming out to participate, we know for many people in the LGBTQ+ community, it's more than just a party, it's identity.

We believe everyone deserves safety, joy, and peace, regardless of how we're different from one another. Our doors are always open, because everyone deserves high quality and compassionate health care.

See scenes from the day in this short video below.

Years of Service Awards

A perfect way to wrap up this newsletter is to highlight our recent Years of Service Awards celebration! Every year, Root Center hosts a celebration dinner to honor staff who have been with the agency for 5, 10, 15, 20, and even 25 years!

This year we honored more than 20 staff members, our highest award going to someone who had been with the organization for 25 years... WOW! We are so thankful to have such committed employees making a difference every day in the lives of our patients and in their communities. This commitment and devotion to Root Center, and our mission, is what makes it possible for us to open our doors at 14 locations across Connecticut, every single day, and welcome patients inside for their lifesaving care. Thank you to all of our staff on their well deserved recognition for such amazing efforts.



Here is a look back at the fun we had that night!

Here at the Root Center, we are always looking to expand our team with likeminded individuals who share a passion for clinical care, and want to better serve the needs of the thousands of clients we serve on a daily basis who struggle with mental health and/or substance use disorder. 



We pride ourselves on being a rapidly growing team offering excellent benefits that will enhance your work-life balance. Start with 37 days off, which includes PTO, holidays, and more. Take advantage of our $2,000 for training and education, up to 10% retirement match, plus comprehensive health benefits!

Check out our current openings here!

We have a podcast, Recovery with Root! We are diving deeper into mental health and addiction topics with leading professionals, researchers, patients, counselors, and so much more! It is hosted by Margaux Farrell, a former Journalist and News Anchor, who is now the current Root Center Chief of Staff. New episodes drop on the first Monday of every month.  Listen and subscribe for free on all major streaming platforms!

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