Salt Lake City Vet Center
The Salt Lake Vet Center works hand in hand with the VA Salt Lake City Healthcare System to provide substance abuse treatment in our community. For more information call the VA at 801-582-1565 x5405.
The Salt Lake Vet Center recognizes that support from the home front can be key in the readjustment of a Veteran when they return from deployment. We provide couples and family counseling regardless of when you served. Listen to one Veteran's spouse talk about her experience at a Vet Center.
Here are a couple of ways that the Salt Lake Vet Center is helping to improve the quality of life for Veterans living in our community:
- We provide suicide prevention training to individuals as well as organizations.
- We advocate on behalf of the Veteran community on local, state, and national levels to improve the quality of life.
- We partner with first responders, local colleges and universities to offer Veteran culture classes to the faculty to help them understand the struggles that veterans and their families may face as well as dispel myths that have haunted or prevented Veterans from achieving their life goals.
If you are looking for specific answers to your benefit questions (both Federal and State) please visit the Utah State Department of Veteran and Military Affairs or call 801- 326-2372.
If you need support or you're looking to help out some of our community's Veterans and service members visit the Utah Veterans Alliance or call 801-363-2955.
The Salt Lake Vet Center provides both individual and group counseling to those who have have lost their loved ones. Please contact us at 801-266-1499 to schedule an appointment.
The Salt Lake Vet Center is made up from a multi-disciplinary team of mental health professionals including but not limited to psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and peer support specialists.
We offer evidence based treatments as well as just a safe place to talk and have someone who can listen.
Our team also includes several Veterans who have deployed in service to our country.
Recovery is an ongoing, daily, and gradual process. Healing does not mean forgetting the traumatic experience or no longer having emotional pain when thinking about it. Rather, it is learning to understand the event, how to cope with your reactions and to move forward.
Healing can look like reduced intensity and frequency of symptoms, increased confidence in ability to cope with memories and reactions, and improved ability to manage emotions and relationships.
Our counselors at the Vet Center can help you through the recovery and healing process to help you thrive with either individual counseling sessions or support groups. The Murray and Ogden offices offer both virtual and in-person support groups that are open to all Vet Center eligible, female service members.
The Vet Center staff uses evidence based therapies in the treatment of PTSD, including, but not limited to
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT),
- Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Psycho-Educational Classes are available for caregivers, friends, and community partners.
The Salt Lake Vet Center and Major Brent Taylor Ogden Outstation provide the following services to returning Veterans.
- Support to Yellow Ribbon Events
- Support to Command-sponsored events
- Information and Educational Briefings
- Resource Referral
- Bereavement Counseling
- Benefit explanation and referral
- Group and individual therapy
- Screening and referral for TBI, depression, etc
Our primary focus is your safety! If you feel hopeless, suicidal, or in need of crisis care, just let your counselor know so you can work together to help you feel safer and more optimistic about your future. Should you need the Veterans Crisis Line, in addition to calling them, you can also reach them via confidential chat at Veterans Crisis Line or text to 838255. Together we work to help you stay safe and improve your world.
The Salt Lake Vet Center has several key staff members that are trained to provide SAVE training to the community.
If you or your organization is interested in receiving free suicide prevention training please call 801-266-1499 and ask to speak with the Outreach Coordinator.
The Vet Center coordinates with the Salt Lake VA Medical Center as well as community organizations to provide interventions to assist the Veteran or service member in treatment.
For more information call the VA suicide prevention team at 801-582-1565 x2786.
Highlighted Vet Center Groups
- Coffee with Candace- "not as lean, not as mean, but still a marine" although this bumper sticker is geared towards the Marine Corps the message is the same for Veterans from all branches of service. This meetup allows Veterans to get together and just be themselves, it is a "safe space" to be a Vet and talk like a Veteran. Call for more information
- Karl's Virtual Meetup- this is a chance for our community partners to share what is available to Veterans and their families. In the past we have hosted, the Regional Director of the Veterans Benefits Administration(VBA), the co-creator of "The Veteran's Writing Foundation", and many others. Call for more information.
- See what our local Veterans say about group.
Community Resources
- If you need support or you're looking to help out some of our community's Veterans and service members visit the Utah Veterans Alliance (801) 363-2955.
- Salt Lake VA Healthcare Network (SLCVAMC) (801) 582-1565
- The SLC VAMC has released a new PSA about what is new within the health care network.
We can connect you with VA Homeless Veteran Outreach or call 801-990-9999.
How we're different than a clinic (FAQs)
How we’re different than a clinic
What are Vet Centers?
Vet Centers are small, non-medical, counseling centers conveniently located in your community. They’re staffed by highly trained counselors and team members dedicated to seeing you through the challenges that come with managing life during and after the military.
Whether you come in for one-on-one counseling or to participate in a group session, at Vet Centers you can form social connections, try new things, and build a support system with people who understand you and want to help you succeed.
Who is eligible to receive services at Vet Centers?
Vet Center services are available to you at no cost, regardless of discharge character, and without you needing to be enrolled in VA health care or having a service-connected disability. If you’re a Veteran or service member, including members of the National Guard and Reserve, you can access our services if you:
- Served on active military duty in any combat theater or area of hostility
- Experienced military sexual trauma (regardless of gender or service era)
- Provided mortuary services or direct emergent medical care to treat the casualties of war while serving on active military duty
- Performed as a member of an unmanned aerial vehicle crew that provided direct support to operations in a combat theater or area of hostility
- Accessed care at a Vet Center prior to January 2, 2013, as a Vietnam-Era Veteran
- Served on active military duty in response to a national emergency or major disaster declared by the president, or under orders of the governor or chief executive of a state in response to a disaster or civil disorder in that state.
- Are a current or former member of the Coast Guard who participated in a drug interdiction operation, regardless of the location.
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Are a current member of the Reserve Components assigned to a military command in a drilling status, including active Reserves, who has a behavioral health condition or psychological trauma related to military service that adversely effects quality of life or adjustment to civilian life.
We encourage you to contact us, even if you’re unsure if you meet these criteria. If we can’t help you, we’ll find someone who will.
Our services are also available to family members when their participation would support the growth and goals of the Veteran or active-duty service member. If you consider them family, so do we. We also offer bereavement services to family members of Veterans who were receiving Vet Center services at the time of the Veteran’s death, and to the families of service members who died while serving on active duty.
Do I have to be enrolled in VA health care to access Vet Center services?
No. You don’t have to be enrolled in VA health care or have a service-connected disability.
What about my privacy?
Safe and confidential. Our records can’t be accessed by other VA offices, the DoD, military units, or other community networks and providers without your permission or unless required to avert a life-threatening situation. Here, you can be as open as you want—there’s absolutely no judgment.