Amy Yates

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LONDON – Operation UNITE is pleased to announce that Rockcastle County resident Amy Yates has been named its new Treatment Director.

“Amy brings a strong background to the UNITE team,” said Karen Kelly, director of UNITE. “Her skills, enthusiasm and deeply-felt concern to help others made her a perfect candidate for this very demanding position.”

Yates will oversee UNITE’s four-person Treatment Team, which provides assistance to individuals seeking help with a substance abuse addiction-related issue.

Those services include:

• Responding to requests made through the toll-free Treatment Referral Line (1-866-908-6483). Currently the team fields approximately 1,200 calls per month.

• Administering the UNITE Treatment Voucher Program. Low-income residents residing in the Fifth Congressional District who suffer from substance abuse issues can receive financial assistance to obtain short-term and long-term residential treatment.

• Contracting with and monitoring residential treatment facilities to ensure quality treatment for a substance abuse addiction. Currently UNITE contracts with 20 treatment facilities in Kentucky and other states. UNITE helped create two residential facilities in the Fifth District – the Chad’s Hope Teen Challenge Center in Clay County and the WestCare Hal Rogers Appalachian Recovery Center in Pike County.

• Assisting UNITE Coalitions and Kentucky Drug Courts in providing after-care for an addiction once a person leaves a treatment facility.

• Providing community education presentations about substance abuse, addiction and treatment.

“I am proud and excited to be a part of the UNITE team,” Yates said. “I have always admired and supported its mission and look forward to serving individuals in each of the 32 counties served by UNITE.”

Prior to joining UNITE Yates was employed by the Department for Community-Based Services in Rockcastle County. She began in 1999 as a social services worker and was promoted to family services office supervisor in January 2010.

In this position she was responsible for assigning cases and providing case supervision to investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect, provide on-going case management to children in foster care and families who were at high risk for abuse and/or neglect, attending court hearings, monitoring expenses of the department, and supervision and evaluation of employees.

Yates is a 1993 graduate of Rockcastle County High School. She obtained a Bachelor of Social Work and a Master of Arts in mental health counseling from Eastern Kentucky University.

Yates is married to Kentucky State Police Lt. John Yates who works at the London Post. The couple has two children, 10-year-old Laurel and 5-year-old Sawyer, both students at Brodhead Elementary School.

Anyone wishing more information about the UNITE Treatment program should visit www.operationunite.org.