Recovery Centers of America at Lighthouse

Kelly Geary is the Director of the Outpatient Programs in New Jersey at Recovery Centers of America. Kelly is a licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor, licensed clinical social worker and certified clinical supervisor who specializes in treating substance abuse, mental health and co-occurring disorders.

Kelly completed her graduate studies at Rutgers University where she obtained her master’s in social work in 2004. During Kelly’s twenty years in the field she has worked with children, teens and adults in several outpatient settings, along with serving in various leadership roles, managing and building programming. Prior to her career at Recovery Centers of America she was solely focused on her private practice, but when offered the opportunity of “saving 1 million lives, one neighborhood at a time”, she couldn’t pass it up. Kelly takes pride in working with an exceptional team of professionals that truly believe in this mission.

Fallon O’Connell has worked in the substance abuse field for about ten years. She has experience in addiction, specifically harm reduction and the 12-step model, and working with families and children.

When she started her career at RCA, she was the outpatient assessor. During the assessment the clients are assessed and placed in their appropriate level of care based on ASAM criteria. At RCA we offer three different programs: Partial Care, Intensive Outpatient and General Outpatient. During their stay in treatment the client’s progress is assessed and then they will be placed in a lower level of care. Our goal is for the clients to continue their care for support and education as they work on their sobriety.

Now as the Clinical Supervisor of Outpatient Services, her goal is to offer the support and resources to the therapist to provide the highest quality care for the clients we serve at RCA.

Kerry is a licensed clinical social worker who began her career at RCA in 2017 while concentrating and implementing evidence-based programs and theories to best address the biopsychosocial needs of those clients participating in our Intensive Outpatient Program. Kerry facilitates IOP morning sessions and develops the curriculum to address relapse prevention, 12-Step Recovery models, co-occurring symptoms of anxiety and depression and other topics that create and encourage ongoing recovery and sobriety.

Kerry has worked in behavioral health during her professional career, addressing family and relationship communication, co-occurring mental health symptoms, emotion and mood regulation, anger management through cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavioral therapies.

Kerry believes that ongoing sobriety and recovery are best treated through education, sober support networking, healthy relationships with family members and significant others as well as internal motivation met through increased feelings of self-worth and individual dignity.

Joe is a licensed social worker and a generalist practitioner. Joe began his career counseling students at Stockton University in an outpatient setting and meeting the needs of a diverse student population. Joe transitioned to employment with Enlightened Solutions and gained experience providing IOP and PHP services for substance use disorders.
Joe has experience treating various mental health conditions and substance use disorders at all outpatient levels of care. Joe places an emphasis on balance and creating a life that is manageable in recovery.
Joe came to RCA with a passion to serve an underserved and stigmatized population. Joe is currently running a partial care program that involves group therapy with an emphasis on skills to assist with transitioning from a residential to outpatient setting, boundaries, codependency, relapse prevention, and understanding the relation between mental health and addiction. Joe includes the option for family sessions and holds individual sessions with group members as part of the therapeutic milieu.

Beth Wray specializes in trauma, grief and loss, depression & anxiety, and co-occurring disorders. She has been working as a general outpatient counselor with RCA for about a year and soon will be starting the new outpatient trauma program. Beth is an outpatient therapist here at Recovery Centers of America. Having grown up and worked in Atlantic County her entire life, she has always been aware of the lack of services for both substance abuse and mental health treatment in this area. “What makes RCA Lighthouse so innovative is that not only will we continue to address the addiction aspect, but we are now incorporating the trauma program that was started in residential and will now be streamlined down into our outpatient setting.” As Ghandi said. “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Her hopes and wish are to heal, educate, and empower trauma survivors so that they can find their way back to hope, possibility, and joy.

Carrie DiPietro has worked in various addiction fields, including drugs, alcohol, sex and gambling, for going on four years now. She specializes in sexual issues and co-occurring mental health disorders using cognitive-behavioral and person-centered approaches.

She joined the RCA team in 2017. Her role as an IOP therapist is to treat patients with dignity and compassion as they continue their outpatient care and begin to re-establish themselves independently. Aside from facilitating groups, she also provides individual therapy and family therapy sessions. It is important for her, as a provider, to approach each patient with respect as to where they are in their recovery, help guide them toward achieving individual goals, and to aid in developing relapse prevention tools and resources.

Kristine A. Young has worked in the substance abuse field for nearly ten years. She has experience in addictions, specifically harm reduction and the 12-step model, and working with co-occurring disorders as well as the severe and persistent mentally ill.

As an intensive outpatient therapist, she prides herself on being able to provide well-rounded care in the field of addictions, while serving each patient with dignity and respect. She aims to incorporate the 12 steps in to my work with all patients and encourage strong sober support as part of each relapse prevention plan. Her work with RCA has focused on providing individualized care with each patient and offering a collaborative approach to treatment planning.

Jennifer Perrotta started her clinical counseling journey after graduating from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey with a BA in Psychology in 2015. Following graduation at FDU, she then attended graduate school and completed the Clinical Mental Health Counseling MA program in 2017. Jennifer is currently a Licensed Associate Counselor in the State of New Jersey. Jennifer also had passed the National Counselor Exam in 2017 in which allows her to be acknowledged as a National Certified Counselor in all states. Jennifer’s expertise consists of a wide range of experience in mental health, co-occurring disorders and addiction working with children, adult and adolescent populations. Jennifer is currently working at both Mays Landing and Voorhees NJ locations.