Janis Tondora, PsyD

Janis Tondora, Psy.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. Based at the Program for Recovery and Community Health, her work involves supporting the implementation of recovery-oriented practices that help people with behavioral health concerns and other disabilities to get more control over decisions about their services so they can live a good life as they define it. She has a particular passion for supporting the implementation of Person-Centered Recovery-Planning (PCRP) through multi-level interventions engaging a wide range of systems stakeholders, most notably people and families with lived experience.

Dr. Tondora has provided training and consultation to over 25 states and multiple international partners seeking to implement Person-Centered Recovery Planning. She has shared her work with the field in dozens of publications, including her 2014 book, Partnering for Recovery in Mental Health: A Practical Guide to Person-Centered Planning. Her training curricula and tools are being widely used both domestically and internationally and they are featured by the National Center on Advancing Person-Centered Practices and Systems (NCAPPS) in their National Environmental Scan of Foundational Resources and Approaches in Person-Centered Care. She is also a lead developer and author of the Recovery Roadmap Tips Series, Strengthening Person-Centered Recovery Planning in State Behavioral Health Systems: A Technical Guide, and the NCAPPS publication Five Competency Domains for Staff Who Facilitate Person- Centered Planning – resources which are informing workforce development and quality monitoring efforts around the country in line with SAMHSA guidance on Person-Centered Planning. Dr. Tondora’s systems change work is informed by rigorous research as she has been both a principal investigator and co-investigator on a number of federal grants from the National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Drawing on both her ongoing research and field-based implementation experience, Dr. Tondora has participated as a steering committee member and subject matter expert on a number of national level initiatives aiming to promote person-centered care across the US disability service system.

Prior to her involvement in behavioral health, Dr. Tondora worked as a consultant providing support to school districts, families, and individuals with disabilities in an effort to promote the full inclusion of people in all aspects of classroom and community life—an objective that remains at the core of her current work in behavioral health. She is a life-long resident of Connecticut where she lives with her husband after recently launching two young adult children and becoming an empty nester. Outside of work, you may find Dr. Tondora enjoying the great outdoors with her family (human and furry!) – on a paddleboard, in the mountains, or at the beach.