The annual Utah Fall Substance Abuse Conference was recently held in St. George on September 21.  This year the Leon Povey Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Karen Dolan, Director of Four Corners Behavioral Health, for her contribution in the field of substance abuse prevention or treatment over the course of her career.

“I’ve actually been in the field 32 years. I started right out of college, I went down to St. George and the state hospital was closing down beds and people with mental illness were returning to their communities, so my first job was to develop a clubhouse in St. George,” said Dolan. “I was a therapist for a long time and I kind of worked by way up, so I’ve been in the field for a long time and I’ve really seen it grow.” At one-time individuals who had mental illness had to live a life of confinement in an institution. Over time once those facilities began to close, the State of Utah handed over the responsibility to communities to provide mental and substance abuse services.

Four Corners serves three counties with highly responsive and effective services for both adults, youth and children. “For Carbon, Emery and Grand, Four Corners is that provider to serve people with serious mental illness and with addiction. We have five drug courts that we serve, we have two clubhouses, one in Moab and one in Carbon County, we have case managers and therapists,” said Dolan. The agency also provides school therapists at the local schools to help with early intervention services for mental health issues or a substance problem.

Other services are out-patient, residential support, in-patient, psychosocial rehabilitation, clubhouse/day programs, case-management, peer support services, medication evaluation and management services through the assistance of 100 employees that make-up the agency. There is a 24-hour emergency service in all three counties that work closely with dispatch, hospitals and law enforcement.

Through various grants, a medication assistant facility will be established to distribute to client’s medication to help with their sobriety, such as Naltrexone, as far as prevention of overdoes, Naloxne is distributed too.

If you or someone you love needs any of the services provided by Four Corners Behavioral Health may visit their website at http://www.fourcorners.ws/