Educator Steve Perry seeks ‘Breakthrough’ in daytime TV
hahah “Breakthrough With Dr. Steve Perry” is set to air for just two weeks for now, but the host sees a longer run.
“I’m confident it won’t take long for people to recognize it’s one of the best things on TV,” said Perry, a noted educator.
Viewers can judge when “Breakthrough” debuts at 2 p.m. Monday on WOFL-Channel 35. The show from CBS Television Distribution will air on Fox Television Stations in eight markets. (The Sentinel has a content-sharing agreement with WOFL.)
“There’s no celebrities,” Perry said. “To the credit of CBS, they didn’t want any. They wanted regular people with real issues.”
Perry works with a gamut of people: A widow has lost her husband to opioids and suicide. A single dad demands that his daughter, 23, get a job. A mother moved from New Jersey to the West Coast to break free of mooching adult children, but they followed her. (Perry is the father of two sons, 15 and 13.)
“I find that most people have to see what role they play in the circumstances they find themselves in,” Perry said. “It’s not about self-blame. It’s about empowerment. It’s about saying I want to lose weight. Well, how did we get here? Once you understand how you got here, you can at least understand how to not keep going there.”
As an educator, Perry said his job is to make sure families communicate, that adults act like adults and that they let the past be past. He is the founder of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Conn. He started the Capital Preparatory Schools nonprofit, which operates two other schools in Connecticut, one in Harlem and one to open in the Bronx. He said he’s proud that educators have become celebrities.
“But I am still an educator. I’ll shoot the show and run the schools,” he said. “To me, the show is just an extension of my work. I’m a social worker by training.”
On the show, he works with a 27-year-old woman who’s $100,000 in debt from luxury spending. He talks back to a mother who constantly interrupts him as he tries to help her son. Perry reasons with a wife who will not forgive her cheating husband or show him affection.
“She had become the perfect victim,” Perry said. “I do say to her, ‘Do you see you’re a perfect victim.’ She says, ‘I guess I am.’”
And that is her breakthrough. There are several per each episode; 10 have been produced so far.
“The main reason I wanted to do it is because real life is messy,” Perry said. “I’m so glad I’m not doing a political show, the vitriol. I don’t want to do that, but I do know every single one of us wants to find a way to love and be loved by people we care about. My goal in the ‘Breakthrough’ series is to get people to look at their role in their lives and uncover what makes them powerful.”
Through the show, he wants to add to the conversation and improve lives.
“The breakthrough for me is work toward being happy,” he said. “No one else can dictate what makes you happy. You’ve just got to be happy. And being happy is a conscious everyday decision.”