Our certified counselors help LGBTQ+ people deal with depression, anxiety, fear, grief, stress, conflict, prejudice, and coming out. Persad Center's clinicians are specially trained and particularly sensitive to experiences common among LGBTQ+ people. Psychiatric services are also available.. HISTORY Persad Center, is the nation's second oldest licensed mental health center specifically created to serve the LGBTQ+ community. Founded in 1972, Persad was created in response to the demand for specialized, nondiscriminatory services expressed by LGBTQ+ individuals through an underground Pittsburgh gay hotline. Started by a group of gay activists in Allegheny County, the hotline was originally established to provide LGBTQ+ people with information regarding safe places to meet one another and as a communication network to make LGBTQ+ people aware of happenings in the community. In an effort to meet the community's requests for safe, non-judgmental mental health services, our founders, Dr. James Huggins and Randal Forrester (pictured above), along with their friends, sketched out the plans for Persad while traveling on a bus headed to DC to protest the Vietnam War. The name Persad was chosen by merging the words "personal" and "adjustment". The agency was established by a board of directors formed at a meeting that took place at Calvary Episcopal Church and included among its members two clergy, a University of Pittsburgh Social Work Professor, and a physician who all recognized the need for this unique agency.