Bartholomew County officials are seeking local funding for a court-ordered drug treatment program for male offenders, similar to an intensive inpatient program offered for females since 2011.
The Substance Abuse Advisory and Accountability Committee on Friday agreed to recommend that the county’s Substance Abuse Public Funding Board provide money for the Recovery Enables a Life for Men (REALM) program.
REALM would provide comprehensive, evidence-based residential treatment focusing on the substance abuse needs of up to 40 male offenders each year, housed in the Bartholomew County Community Corrections Center at the back of the Bartholomew County Jail.
The committee recommended the program receive about $48,000 for the final three months of this year, and full funding for next year, for a combined total of $241,365.
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If the public funding board approves the funding later this month, the proposal must then go before both the Columbus City and Bartholomew County councils, funding board president Laura DeDomenic said.
If both councils approve funding, four positions would be created: a case manager, two residential staff members and a contracted mental health professional who will serve as program coordinator, said Rob Gaskill, Bartholomew County Community Corrections Center director of residential services.
REALM would have a similar structure to the program for females known as Women Recovering with a Purpose, or WRAP.
The women’s WRAP program begins with a six-month intensive inpatient program in which participants live in the Bartholomew County Community Corrections Center, followed by another six months of after care with electronic monitoring.
If existing qualified employees are willing to fill the positions for REALM, it will take 30 to 60 days to get the new program started, Bartholomew County Court Services Director Brad Barnes told the county council in June.
The funding board was formed to oversee financial allocations for programming and services recommended through the Alliance for Substance Abuse Progress in Bartholomew County to fight the opioid abuse epidemic locally. The city and the county will be asked to share costs to some degree for all board-endorsed proposals, board facilitator Mary Ferdon said.
The formal proposal was submitted nearly a year after ASAP Executive Lead Jeff Jones said establishing a treatment program for male inmates was among the organization’s highest priorities.
The grant application was mostly written by Gaskill after the board approved an application process June 13, said Bartholomew Circuit Court Judge Kelly Benjamin, who leads the ASAP intervention team.
The Substance Abuse Advisory and Accountability Committee is made up of law enforcement, hospital, judicial, legal and medical/mental health professionals. This committee serves as a panel of experts to evaluate each proposal before sending their recommendations to the board.
But the committee is also charged with coming up with ways of measuring results of a proposal, including its chances of success.
Such metrics regarding drug-addicted inmates are likely to be all over the board, said Carl Lienhoop, a Bartholomew County commissioner who leads the ASAP initiative with Columbus Regional Hospital CEO Jim Bickel and Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop.
While an addictions treatment and recovery facility for pregnant women and mothers might expect a success rate of 55 to 60 percent, Carl Lienhoop anticipates it could be 30 percent or slightly above for similar programs for inmates.
Most metrics for the proposed court-ordered drug treatment program for males were gathered several months ago when applications were completed for the grants, Benjamin said.
While the county was awarded $85,978 in federal funding for the men’s program through the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, a second grant request for $190,000 in state funds was denied.
Unless the subsequent financial gap can be filled before the end of April, the county will lose the first grant, Gaskill said.
The women’s program, WRAP, began in 2011 and has since documented that program graduates do avoid relapses into drug addiction or criminal behavior.
Benjamin said she has not seen any evidence-based research that this type of program might be less effective for males than females.
“Right now, men do not have the options that women have,” Benjamin said. “They should both have that opportunity.”
It’s been six years since these types of services have been available for uninsured male jail inmates dealing with addictions.
In 2012, a residential program for men that served 17 counties, including Bartholomew, was closed in Clark County after funding was eliminated by the Indiana Department of Mental Health.
While the opioid crisis is primarily a health issue, the desire to get money to buy narcotics has been linked to most property crimes and minor thefts, Benjamin said. That means addiction should be viewed as harmful to both the community and the drug user, the judge said.
