A new research center at Ball State University focusing on substance use is taking its cues from the surrounding community.  As IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports, directors say the project aims to help substance abuse in the area by partnerships that listen first.

The Center for Substance Use Research and Community Initiatives  – known as SURCI – may be new, but it is partnering with the Addictions Coalition of Delaware County, local organizations, healthcare businesses, and officials that aren’t.

“We don’t always have the same vision.  There’s differences between public health approaches and law enforcement approaches, but the fact that just about everybody has come to the table has been really important.”

That’s Dane Minnick, one of SURCI’s directors.  He says community-driven research and solutions is the goal.

Fellow director Jonel Thaller says the community will play a big part in how to craft the help it needs.

“I can remember sitting in the Avondale [United] Methodist Church, in the basement, and talking to people in the neighborhood, and [asking], ‘What do we want to do here?’  And everyone took a vote, and the winning vote was ‘We need a crisis center.’  We need so much, but the winning vote was crisis center.  And at that point, we’re like, ‘All right, let’s get to it.’”

Besides helping the area create a crisis center, SURCI is also studying trauma-informed care and how its approach to health can help the whole community.

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That’s because, according to fellow director Jean Marie Place, Delaware County is high on the list of Hoosier counties seeing overdoses that require hospitalization, fatal overdoses, infections from drug use, and children in foster care because of substance use situations.  Place says change will come from a variety of ideas.

“While we can work through the criminal justice system, we can also work through the early childhood education system, to try to produce healthier, more peaceful environments for children – so their experiences with trauma is limited.”

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SURCI will work on both community- and state-level projects on substance use.  Ball State hopes it will become a national model of community-engaged research.

From SURCI: Ball State faculty and staff members interested in joining SURCI or proposing a collaborative project are encouraged to contact the Center at surci@bsu.edu.