At a community discussion this weekend on addiction and criminal justice reform, officials say the fight against addiction locally begins with recognizing mental health issues and spending more money on care. As IPR’s Sawyer Osmun reports, they also want to start with the area’s youngest citizens.

“We’re not doing a good job of letting the public know, especially our youth through social media, not just in the paper, or Facebook or Instagram, about the new drugs. I mean if we know there’s something new on the market, it should be plastered everywhere.”

That’s Muncie city councilwoman Ro Selvey.  She says the city’s recently announced Crisis Center is a good start, funded by $2 million in federal funds.

“It’s not enough, but it’s a good step.  Everyone voted yes for it, so we have hope on the council. And I know there’s much more we can do.”

The panel came together as part of a panel after a screening of “The First Step,” a national documentary about bipartisan criminal reform.  The Facing Project brought the film to Muncie and says it  “follows political commentator Van Jones and the bipartisan coalition who fought to pass landmark criminal justice reform in 2018 (The First Step Act), which has allowed more than 20,000 people to come home from federal prisons.”

The Facing Project’s J.R. Jamison hosted the panel discussion about the ways Delaware County can take steps forward to improve on issues similar to what the documentary discusses.

Audience members from the community were curious how local programs can educate students about Narcan and drug prevention knowledge.

Neil Kring is a pastor and team leader for the Muncie Harm-Reduction.  He says substance abuse due to mental health issues is starting with the community’s kids.

“I have fourth graders who start using marijuana because of anxiety and needing to be calm before they go to sleep.”

State lawmakers are discussing how much to add to the next two-year budget to fund community mental health clinics and public health services overall in Indiana.

Read More: ‘Paradigm shift’ for public health easily clears Indiana Senate, heads to House

On criminal justice reform, the audience heard more about the peer recovery program being piloted at the Delaware County jail.

Jeff Stanley is Chief Deputy of the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office.

“Just the month of February, the IRACS counselors spoke to over 360 inmates to see if they wanted to be in this program, and I believe we have about 48 inmates that are successfully going through the program right now, so we’ll continue to do this program.”

The Facing Project airs a monthly program on Indiana Public Radio, available through NPR and other national podcasting services.

Sawyer Osmun is part of Ball State Public Media’s Public Media Accelerator student fellowships.