BROWNSTOWN

A man with substance use issues had been to prison multiple times, doing stints of four or five years at a time.

When he wasn’t serving time in the Jackson County Jail in Brownstown, he was homeless.

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During his last time in jail, he was involved in Centerstone’s re-entry and recovery program. Centerstone staff and community partners used evidence-based practices of moral reconation therapy, anger management and relapse prevention to help him transition back into the real world when he got out of jail.

Then he was transferred to a home for adult men in recovery from substance addiction and completed that program.

Now, he has been clean for nearly six months, holds a full-time job and a part-time job, is in the process of getting his kids back, is paying rent on his own apartment and attends recovery support meetings twice a week.

“It wasn’t forced sobriety,” said Kelly Brown, outreach assessment prevention coordinator for the EMERGE program. “When he came in, he was learning in jail how to be clean and then learning how to live out there. Six months is not a whole lot of time to do all of that, so the fact that he has done that is exceptional.”

That’s just one success story of the Centerstone program, which has been in place at the jail since April 2018.

The program has served 33 men. Of the 12 who have been released from jail, only one has been re-arrested, but he has not been convicted, so he is still eligible for programming and is entering a residential treatment program, Brown said.

Currently, there are 15 men in a therapeutic pod at the jail going through the program. That pod opened in August after a recreational room was converted. There also are nine women who participate in moral reconation therapy in a classroom.

The program was made possible through Centerstone receiving a three-year $1.2 million federal EMERGE grant in 2018.

The mental health and addiction services provider initially applied for the grant after the HIV outbreak in Scott and surrounding counties in 2015. Centerstone scored high enough to be awarded, but there were a lot of applicants at the time, and it didn’t receive funding.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance then came back in 2018 and awarded a grant.

Shortly after, the Jackson County Commissioners contacted Centerstone’s Seymour office and invited them to come to a meeting to talk about the program. Then-Sheriff Mike Carothers was there and agreed to set up a meeting with jail officials.

Jennifer Fillmore, director of grants and specialized services for Centerstone, said Carothers was ready to set up a therapeutic pod at the jail where offenders wouldn’t have to intermingle with the general jail population. The jail would partner with Centerstone to provide a safe, secure environment for them to receive evidence-based practices that would help them transition back into the community.

To qualify for the program, an offender has to have substance abuse history, have been in custody at least 90 days and be considered at a high risk to re-offend. An offender can refer themselves or be referred by a public defender, a prosecutor, a judge, a probation officer or a parole officer.

The jail commander has the final say and passes the offender’s name on to Brown, who does a formal assessment.

Once the men are accepted into the therapeutic pod, they receive 30 hours of programming a week, and they also have peer meetings on their own led by a recovery star.

Brown is the program coordinator and also works with Centerstone employees and community partners to help facilitate group sessions. The partners include Turning Point Domestic Violence Services, an addiction ministry and Ivy Tech Community College for education and employment classes. There also are Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

“A lot of it is criminal thinking. We’re trying to eliminate that criminal thinking,” Brown said.

Along with posters listing the program rules, there are pictures hanging on a wall with the offenders’ names and date they became clean. They refer to it as Sobriety Back to Society.

“They’ve made it as homey as they possibly could considering they are still incarcerated, which aids in that recovery process,” Fillmore said. “We get somebody to the point where they are comfortable and safe. That’s when the magic really happens, and that’s what’s happening back there.”

The men also are required to do two hours of community service a week. Centerstone recently provided funding so the men could help make fleece tie blankets to be given to the sheriff’s department and Seymour and Brownstown police departments to distribute to the homeless.

Brown is working with Sheriff Rick Meyer and Jail Commander Chris Everhart to provide other community service opportunities.

“Part of being in recovery is giving back, always being of service,” Brown said. “As long as they are doing something for someone else and seeking nothing in return, we count it as long as they are not benefiting from it.”

As offenders complete the program, Centerstone and its partners offer continued support for housing, employment and recovery.

“A lot of engagement is a big key point to this, so it’s just a continuum of care once they are released,” Brown said.

While the Jackson County Jail is the only jail program involved with the grant, Fillmore said Centerstone has similar 90-day jail programs in Monroe and Lawrence counties.

She said if offenders complete the jail portion and the 90-day followup support, 100 percent of them make it in the real world. If they only complete the jail portion, however, they don’t make it.

“It’s almost like an all or nothing thing because it’s one thing to learn the skills you need in here in a controlled environment. It’s another thing to take them out in the community where you’re getting hit by family members and different things,” she said. “The key really is to continue the transition services.”

It’s about giving them a leg up to be successful when they are out on their own, Fillmore said.

“For me, the program is a blessing because you are helping people get the tools that they need to leave (jail) and do the next right thing,” she said. “When we just incarcerate people without programming, it’s the definition of insanity to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”

Both Fillmore and Brown said they have family members and friends who have dealt with addictions, so this program is personal to them.

“It just makes my heart really happy that those gentlemen, they are fathers, they are uncles, they are brothers, they are dads, and when they leave here, we’ve not only impacted their life, we’ve impacted all of those other people that still love them, that they are going to be connected to when they leave here,” Fillmore said.

Seeing people transform their lives has impacted Brown.

“It’s pretty special to see individuals who don’t think much of themselves and then are able to stand up in front of myself every day and their peers and just completely turn their life around,” she said.

“One thing we discussed, we are not fully recovered. We’re always recovering,” she said. “To see men who have lived a life of incarceration just completely turn their lives around to the point where I cannot see how they ever got to that level is just crazy for me.”

For many of the men, it’s the first time in their lives that they are on the right track, so they appreciate the opportunity to be involved in the program, Brown said.

“They are very humble and very grateful, and they are always respectful of anyone in there,” she said. “How much they are wanting this, how willing and how open and how honest they are just goes leaps and bounds for the men back there.”

On the Web

For information about Centerstone, visit centerstone.org.