The 15 women working in Bartholomew County’s WRAP program now consider themselves part of a sisterhood of women bonding together to overcome the consequences of poor decision making, much of it involving criminal activity and drugs.
Tucked into the county’s Community Corrections complex behind the jail, the residential program Women Recovering with a Purpose, or WRAP, is in its seventh year. It’s an intensive year-long residential treatment program for women, followed by aftercare with electronic monitoring, designed to reduce recidivism for criminal behavior and addiction.
“We ask of a lot of these ladies,” said Rob Gaskill, director of residential services at the center. “Everyone who comes through here completes a life map. We ask them to dig down deep and figure out what’s going on in their lives and to change those things that need to be changed. It’s about changing their thought process about substance abuse and criminal behavior.”
The program is considered one of Bartholomew County’s biggest successes in the fight against the opioid addiction crisis, with only 26 percent of the more than 170 participants so far being discharged from the program without completing it.
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The program, which began locally in March 2011, takes women who are in jail or sentenced and are at a moderate to high risk to re-offend or return to substance abuse, said Brad Barnes, Court Services director who oversees the program.
The typical female accepted to the program has had failures in treatment plans or community-based treatment, and intensive outpatient treatment has not worked, Barnes said. Each has been sentenced by a judge to enter the program, and each is assessed to determine if she will qualify.
The program can only take 15 women at a time and there is occasionally a waiting list. The program, along with other Court Services programming, is funded through federal, state and other grant sources, which continue to fluctuate in support, and user fees.
One common denominator for most of the women is that substance abuse is a symptom of the issues the women face, not the whole problem, Barnes said.
“Sometimes people want to focus just on the substance abuse. But in reality, there are a lot of reasons the women are referred to WRAP,” he said. “The curriculum is built to find out the root of their problems, not just the symptoms.”
The real issues the women are dealing with usually relate to trauma — physical abuse, sexual abuse, childhood abuse — that has never been dealt with, Barnes said.
“Nearly 100 percent of these women have issues with trauma,” Gaskill said. “I believe the women turn to substance abuse to deal with trauma in their past when they didn’t get the proper treatment at the time. And I think we will find the same thing with men,” he said, referring to efforts to begin a new inpatient treatment program for men.
The women live in a space similar to a jail pod, their belongings placed in a footlocker underneath what looks much like institutional bunk beds that line one wall.
Along the walls are colorful posters of life maps where the women map out their experiences in marker on paper and share what has brought them to the program.
Some are formatted in the form of trees. Some are highways. Some are just lists.
Chatting with the women in a small conference room in the complex, several talked about the program’s goal of retraining their way of thinking through a structured environment, focused therapy and re-evaluation of past choices.
“We are getting it all out there and healing,” one participant said. “You have to think about what you have done.”
Community Corrections personnel requested that no current participants in the program be identified.
Another woman in the program pointed out that participants go through seven workbooks that they fill with writing and responses over six months.
“This really opens my eyes about how much I’ve messed up,” she said.
Signs with words of encouragement and day brighteners are also on the walls, encouraging WRAP participants to look toward the future while they are figuring out the past.
Staff from Community Corrections and Centerstone teach the program components, which include “Seeking Safety,” “Residential Drug Abuse Program” and the Texas Christian University’s Mapping Enhanced Counseling.
Cost to the participants is a $75 initial fee, which covers bedding supplies and hygiene items.
The women receive meals from the jail kitchen or may purchase items from vending that is located in the facility and stocked by Community Corrections.
The women wear their own clothing and are allowed to have a battery-powered radio with headphones. A television is available in their pod for their use.
The 15 women have left behind a collective 24 children to be cared for by others while they are in the program, but do get to visit with them once a week. Rebuilding relationships with family members and children who have been affected by the drug abuse and criminal activity is important, the women said.
The women spend six months in the unit before being released to another six to eight months of aftercare and monitoring. They then may consider joining a new offering from the program, a support group of WRAP graduates called Winners Circle who meet weekly at the Community Corrections center to reinforce what they have learned in recovery.
Gaskill said he sometimes realizes how much a difference the WRAP program is making when he compares the women’s jail booking photographs from the past to a new photograph taken when women graduate from the program a year later.
“It’s really neat to see the transformation in these women and how their thought processes change,” he said. “You can just watch people change. It’s a big accomplishment.”
One of the most important goals of the program for staff members is to make sure that each woman in the program is treated with respect and dignity, and with all the hopes that she will be successful in completing the WRAP program, Gaskill said.
“Everyone in this building brings value to my life,” Gaskill said of working at Community Corrections. “We don’t just look at people as offenders. We are trying to change their lives.”
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To learn more about Community Corrections and Bartholomew County Court Services, visit bartholomew.in.gov/court-services.html#about-us
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To learn more about efforts to help individuals with addiction in Bartholomew County, or to find help, visit asapbc.org/.
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WRAP: Women Recovering With A Purpose
Administered by: Bartholomew County Court Services
Founded: March 2011, in a partnership between Bartholomew County Court Services and Centerstone
Reason: At that time, 20 to 25 percent of the daily jail population were female, and the majority were in jail on substance-related offenses or had committed offenses to purchase drugs.
Eligibility: Women are accepted into the program after a judge makes it part of their sentencing or are referred from another Indiana county. Offenders must be at moderate to high risk to re-offend and at moderate to high risk in substance abuse or addictive disorder.
Timeframe: The program is a year-long substance abuse program which consists of four to six months of intensive residental treatment at the Bartholomew County Community Corrections Center, and the balance of the year in aftercare with day reporting and electronic monitoring. Each woman receives a treatment plan that is individualized as needed.
Programming:
- The residential drug abuse program is a female-specific interactive journaling program that is tailored to help participants face criminal and dug use issues specific to them. Emphasis is placed on learning skills and accepting responsibility for making positive life changes. Participants complete homework individually in their journals and meet as a group four times a week for two hours to talk and process their answers with staff and other group members.
- “Seeking Safety” is a therapy to help the women recover from post traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse. It consists of 25 sessions and is taught three times a week for an hour and a half per session.
- Texas Christian University Mapping Enhanced Counseling is a cognitive strategy to increase motivation, engagement, participation and retention in treatment. Course work is designed to improve psychosocial and related decision-making skills. Course is taught six times weekly in hour and half sessions.
- Moving On is designed to provide a supportive and collaborative environment that helps women build a healthy and mutually supportive network. The program also helps women successfully navigate the challenges of reintegration into the community. Offered one time a week.
- WRAP also uses resources such as GED training, non-denominational church services, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery and Bible study.
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The United States is in the midst of the worst drug epidemic in history.
With alarming frequency, opioids — including prescription drugs, heroin and fentanyl — are killing Americans, including an increasing number in Bartholomew County.
The Republic is taking a yearlong look into the public health crisis that touches nearly every segment of our community and that crosses all socioeconomic lines.
Addicted & Dying will tell the harrowing stories of people with drug addictions and families who have lost loved ones.
We will talk to doctors, addiction specialists, law enforcement officers and others on the front lines battling a problem that is ruining lives and putting mounting pressures on social service agencies, hospitals, the judicial system and the economy.
Beyond that, Addicted & Dying will explore solutions and a path forward — what treatments and approaches work, what communities can do and how to help people in need.
The project began with a three-part installment in January. It resumes today with an emphasis on Bartholomew County treatment programs targeted to individuals who find themselves incarcerated due to drug-related crimes and are trying to break the cycle and live sober.
Got an idea for our project? Contact us at [email protected] or call 812-379-5631.
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Read about efforts to create a program in Bartholomew County to treat males facing addiction issues while inmates in the incarcerated in the county jail. Page A5.
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