Title: Therapist
Company: Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center
Location: St. George, Utah, United States
Paul T. McGarry, MSW, LCSW, Therapist at the Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Health Care Professionals for dedication, achievements, and leadership in mental health care.
Mr. McGarry began his career on June 1, 1979, as a psychiatric aide at the Utah State Hospital, while completing his undergraduate degree in psychology at Brigham Young University in August 1979. In October of the same year, he accepted a job at Copper Mountain Mental Health Day Treatment Center for troubled teens in Murray, Utah. A few months later, the executive director of Odyssey House of Utah, a drug treatment center in Salt Lake City, asked him to accept the position of director of adolescent admission and public relations at the Odyssey Adolescent Facility. Mr. McGarry continued to work at that position while attaining his graduate degree in social work at the University of Utah, which he completed in June 1983.
As Utah had started a premiere program to help keep teenagers out of jails in rural areas of the state through the newly created Division of Youth Corrections, the Northern Utah regional director of the division of youth corrections asked Mr. McGarry to apply to come to work at the Observation and Assessment Program, a place where the Juvenile Court could place adolescents with questionable juvenile records to be evaluated, schooled and treated for up to 90 days before being returned to the court with a recommendation for disposition/placement. He was offered the position as one of the two program coordinators that compiled the various aspects of the report and made the final recommendations to the court. He also instituted marathon therapy groups every six weeks so that every student had the benefit of attending at least one marathon session. During this period, Mr. McGarry traveled around the Northern part of the state, accompanying these adolescents to their court hearings and working with their families.
After 7 years into this position, the Regional Administrator asked if Mr. McGarry would become the therapist to take a lead at the local detention center (MOWEDA) in an Early Intervention Project to attempt to determine which adolescents could be stopped from penetrating the system further, a position he held for one-and-a-half years. He subsequently accepted a job to administer a Department of Education Grant training college staff and teachers and helping to support their substance abuse prevention program at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. He later applied for a job with The Utah State Division of Children and Family Services in Cedar City, Utah as a youth service worker, in which his responsibility was to work with the local detention center, schools, and local law enforcement agencies to return runaway students home in addition to working with families of youth escalating delinquent behaviors and their families to de-escalate their problematic behaviors and return them home. With the support of his supervisor, he established two Youth Service Homes in the county where we could place runaway youth awaiting transportation home and youth who were defiant to family and community rules for up to 45 days. In this role, Mr. McGarry also supervised a youth advocate program hiring and supervising young adults that were assigned to track, supervise, and provide mentoring to teens needing increased supervision in the community.
Following two years in this job, Mr. McGarry was contacted by a friend from a previous community to apply to work with him at the Mental Health Unit at Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison, Utah. He was offered the position to work there in May 1994, after qualifying for the rigorous physical requirements and background check to work as a mental health worker before advancing to become the mental health supervisor for that site in January 1999. Shortly thereafter, the warden wanted sex offender, substance abuse and mental health treatment under the same umbrella and titled it The Behavioral Health Unit, which Mr. McGarry supervised and provided treatment for inmates in all three areas of therapy for about three years when the Correctional Administration for the state determined to place sex offender and substance abuse treatment under the Programming Portion of the prison system and returning mental health to the Prison Clinical Services.
In 2006, one of his correctional administrators asked Mr. McGarry to supervise the residential substance abuse program at CUCF. When the mental health unit was experiencing numerous challenges in August 2007, he was requested by several correctional administrators to return to the mental health unit and restore order to that unit, during which time he gained a number of invaluable opportunities in his areas of expertise. He notably recalls his ability to facilitate the transition of inmates from the Draper Prison Site to a new maximum security building. He continued to work at CUCF until the last day of December 2015. On the first Monday in 2016, Mr. McGarry began working at Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center in St. George, Utah.
During this time, Mr. McGarry worked part-time as a clinical social worker and clergy for Gunnison Valley Home Health Agency, which he helped to offer hospice services in several counties in South Central Utah. In this capacity, he visited patients that were on home health and/or hospice services for approximately 8 years. He also served in many roles, including commander, for Manti Post #31 of the American Legion over a 10-to-15-year period. He likewise contributed in many teaching roles in my local church working with young children, teens, and adults. Currently, Mr. McGarry is a member of the St. George (Dixie) Elks Lodge where we work with local youth groups, veterans groups, and other agencies in the community.
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