Sova Counseling was founded by Jamaica Shires and Yotam Livnat, two mental health providers who have spent over a decade working in community mental health with individuals, families, and systems navigating significant complexity.

From the beginning, our work has been guided by a simple commitment: that high-quality, dignity-forward care should be accessible to everyone, not just those with resources, stability, or uncomplicated lives.

Much of our work has taken place across outpatient and community mental health settings, supporting adults, youth, and families navigating high levels of distress. We built programs that intentionally integrated Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), attachment-based approaches, and emotion coaching. These frameworks allowed people, across ages and roles, to develop greater agency, understanding, and values-based direction. Change was not rushed. Progress was not forced. The work was allowed to take the time it actually takes.

Working in community mental health also meant learning how treatment unfolds when people are navigating food insecurity, housing instability, complex trauma histories, intergenerational patterns, and the ongoing stressors of poverty. We learned quickly that care which ignores these realities often fails. Not because people are resistant or unmotivated, but because the model itself does not fit the life being lived.

Throughout this work, eating disorders consistently showed up. Sometimes visibly. Often quietly. For many individuals and families, disordered eating functioned as a way to cope with overwhelming emotional pain, instability, or a loss of control. Its impact placed immense strain on already fragile systems and relationships.

What became increasingly clear was how little accessible care existed for people facing eating disorders alongside complex mental health and social challenges. Many of the clients and families we worked with could not find a single provider who offered informed, targeted eating disorder care while also accepting Medicaid or working within public systems.

Sova was built in response to that gap.

At Sova Counseling, we provide dignity-forward, evidence-based, eating-disorder-informed care for individuals and families who are too often left without real options. We are grateful to be building this clinic alongside emergency room psychiatrists, community leaders, Medicaid partners, and policymakers across Utah who recognized the urgency of this need.