Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this February 14th, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here, and welcoming into the studio,
our friends from Encourage. We have Kim Shields, Community Investment and Communication Specialist,
Kim. Always good to see you. Great to see you. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to you.
Yeah, yeah. I keep forgetting. I appreciate you being here. Thanks a lot for the time, Kim.
And of course, we want to thank our friends and Encourage who oftentimes give up their time
on this segment to be able to focus on something in our community.
We've got a very important one on today. We have Cassandra Abney, am I saying the right hand?
That's correct. Yep. Cassandra, Pam, mark that down. They've got a last name right.
Cassandra, I always get messed up last names, Cassandra. Cassandra is joining us from Wood County
Adult Drug Treatment. And for one, thank you very much for being here. I understand it's a
little bit of a crunch for you right now with some of the stuff you got going on. But most importantly,
this topic, thank you for putting your career into this, for what you do in this community. When
it comes to this, we greatly appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I love this career like
you want to believe so. And I'm not surprised in order to be in a position like in order to do
something like this, I imagine you have to have a passion for it. I want to get into a couple of
things with you, Cassandra in a moment. And I certainly want to talk with you, Kim, about
Encourage in a community foundation. Before we do, I find it necessary sometimes in interviews
to give a precursor. And for me, when we're talking on this subject, I have been very clear with
the audience and this community about my family and the struggles that my father has gone through
with heroin. And I'm extremely fortunate that my father's story is going to end differently.
My dad probably going to go out from old age or something like that or or losing his mind over
a sports team not doing well or something. That's not how these stories end usually. It's in prison
or it's an overdose. And the fact that my father is going to go that way or something is thankful,
it is in part because of the work that he did, certainly, and that is noteworthy. But he wouldn't
have been able to do that work without programs like the Drug Treatment Program that we have here,
or like some of the great officers that we have at the Wood County Jail and that that helped him
find his way. These all these things come together. And oftentimes when we're talking about
the addiction or somebody getting through an addiction, it is never just a one trick that is
going to do it or one thing. It's often a team effort that it takes to make that happen. We'll
talk more about that moment, Cassandra. But just I'm biased on this subject. I'm going to be honest
with you guys. There's no way I can't not be. And I think that I'm not alone on that. I don't
think that I'm alone whether you've been touched by this subject or not. And I appreciate James
that you've always been very, very open with everybody you know with the listening audience.
I think people can have a lot to learn from you. And the fact that you share your history and
your heart is so important. So thank you. I don't handle compliments well. So I'll just
move out. Thanks, Kim. Thank you, Kim. I appreciate it. Let's talk a little bit about the
encourage community foundation if you don't mind, Kim. Yeah, great. Thank you. So we are in our 30th
year. We've shared that with our listeners before. And we got it on our social media platforms and
letters that we've mailed out. And we're really, really excited to be able to serve our community
to invest in our community. You know, it all started with our founder Virginia Brazo and her having
a dream that to create a community foundation for the people of our area for the greater south
wood county area and to help support the changing needs. And so with that, we've been able to
utilize our unrestricted funding to be flexible and nimble. And one of the ways is supporting
you know, like three bridges recovery, the wood county adult treatment courts. So many
organizations that in our community that are serving basic needs, crisis situations,
and those that help educate the community and just to be there. This wrap around support for
every single individual. And along with that, in our 30th year, we have a very generous supporter
that is offering a $30,000 dollar for dollar match by $330. And we are so excited and so humbled
and so pleased to have this support. And you know, this person had asked, you know, the communities
for everybody, regardless of where you come from, what you do, what your dreams are, what you struggle
with. And who's going to take care of the community? And that was a really important question
that was asked. And with that, the person was very generous and had the means to be able to
provide this match. And so we are raising funds. It's for our unrestricted funding. So that's
something that you know, ties into our topic today. And who's going to take care of the community,
you know, we're a part of that. And with that unrestricted funding, we were able to help get
involved with the Wood County Adult Drug Treatment Court early on. So, I mean, back in October
of 2004, we were able to provide some startup funding that helped. We have a fund that encouraged
so people can donate, get their tax receipt if that's important to them, but everybody does.
And we're able to support this great community asset. I mean, this important service,
that the drug court is providing. I'm working with our individuals, which I'm looking forward to
hearing Cassandra talk about that. But, you know, I just want to highlight that and let people know
if they're interested in donating to help support our unrestricted funding to be able to do work
like this. We would greatly appreciate it. When I was a kid, I remember, and I think a lot of us
have heard this story before, you know, around Christmas and somebody goes around and
anonymously leaves money in mailboxes or does a big donation and it's from anonymous or something.
As a kid, I always thought there was the coolest thing. It was something that I dreamed about
doing one day and everything. And for this person and all the individuals over the years that
have done things like that, gigantic thank you to putting back into your community for caring
about that kind of thing. And it goes so far. I think with anonymous, it focuses on the money,
it focuses on the giving. Not to say it wouldn't if you wanted your name mentioned, no harm in that at
all. I just think that it's interesting when that happens. And it's so important that this open
program, this open fund that we have, we just don't know where it could be, what is coming around
the corner and where it could be really useful. Right. I mean, I had a wonderful conversation with
Three Bridges, who we've had on the radio before and is a huge partner to the adult drug treatment
and talking about the needs that they have and the waiting list that we have in Wood County
over half of their waiting list is for Wood County alone. So there's a tremendous need and some
of the funding, the state funding that they receive had started up with the opioid crisis
and response to that. And so it all comes around, but to be able to be flexible and have that
ability to support wherever it's needed as needs arise is so critical for our organization.
Well said. And we look forward to hearing more and more about this opportunity for people
and hopefully next month here in the match, you know, here in Southern Match and that.
That's good. We're close to halfway, which we're super excited. It started on Giving Tuesday.
And so we're excited. Keep that in mind, everybody, that we're you got until the 30th
next month to get that match in and everything. So we're going to be hoping and you can find out
more about encourage. We'll give the information on that in a little bit. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Kim. Appreciate you. Absolutely. Cassandra, the Wood County adult drug treatment court is
where you're joining us from to represent today. And I'd like to if you don't mind to start on the
history of the Wood County drugs, Wood County's drug court and the state of Wisconsin in general in
this state. Absolutely. Well, first of all, I want to thank you guys for inviting me here today.
I'm super passionate about drug courts and with encourage, they've helped us out tremendously
with a lot of things. So to kind of start off, the first ever with a technically called problem
solving court started in 1996 in Dane County. Our started up here in Wood County in 2004,
but it wasn't until 2007 that we really got like our major grant funding from the state and we
were really able to kind of like headway. And so we're a completely grant funded program.
The County does have to do a little bit of because we're grant funded, they do have to kind of,
a little bit of tax lovvy with that, but essentially everything is to is I'm a grant funded
position, everything like that. So, you know, until that 2007 mark is kind of when we really
headwayed and we were able to kind of start the program. Very cool. And the program has only
grown since then in use, I imagine. Yeah, absolutely. I started, so it's kind of fun fact is I
actually started with this, this is my second time working with the program. So I started my career
back in 2014ish with the program. I started just as a drug court case manager underneath Ryan
McMillan at the time. And then I went to be a probation and parole agent for five years.
And then as soon as this position kind of was posted, I live in this community. I'm so passionate
for me. I jumped on it and I've been back for almost a year at this point and I absolutely love it.
Good on you. Right on. And we need passionate people in these positions. So that's good to hear.
For those that don't know and and I say that it's hard for me to say that it's hard to imagine
most people that don't know what drug court is nowadays because this is affected our communities
so much. And whether it's a six degrees of separation or not, most of us have heard a story or under
understanding a loose way what drug court is. What I'd like to do is give an actual answer to what
is instead of kind of like people just assuming or maybe you heard so and so talking about it or
whatever. It gives an actual definition of what drug court is. Okay. So essentially it's a program
designed to help break the cycle of substance abuse and reduce crime ultimately making wood
county a healthier place. So I know that's really a blanket term. But you know at the end of the day,
people can come into this program in two different ways. So one way is through the court system.
So there's sentence to come to drug court and at the end if they complete it, they typically get
their charge dismissed or reduced or they can come in through an alternative to revocation. So
that means they're already on probation. And then you know their agent doesn't want to send them
to jail or prison. They want to offer them a route to treatment. So they come into our program.
It's a really hard commitment. I won't you know I won't minimize that at all. It's at minimum
16 months typically. I mean we have some people at this point that are going on the two-year
mark in the program. So it's just it goes off of you know how well they're doing you know the
benchmarks they write you know they make as to how you know the progress kind of goes along with it.
So I mean it's it's intense but I mean it works otherwise I won't be doing it. It works.
It's important in this community it really is. I'm curious. Well let's get into your role first
and I'll ask my question. So Chandler what is your role at the treatment center? Okay so I am the
case manager. So I'm kind of I do everything let's be honest. Yeah I was going to say I felt
asking that question like I know this is going to be a loaded question. It really is. You can take
that on. Right absolutely. So I mean essentially I am kind of the middle man between the participant
and the team. So in the seven plus years I've worked with this you know problem solving courts.
We probably have one of the biggest teams I've seen in the state you know when we sit at our table
we have multiple tables because there's the judge the DA the you know the public defender the private
defense we have three bridges we have treatment you know that's just to name a few of them obviously
and so I kind of in that middle man I connect the person with the resources I help them you know
create case plan goals everything like that I have to kind of monitor their progress with them and
I report back to the team you know so I'm kind of the no all be all I'm the one that some of them
try to call the middle of the night not that I will always answer but I am you know I have a phone
on me 24 seven and I'm kind of their main point of contact when it comes to this program and
the things that they need. I can't imagine the amount of people that you've been able to help
and you and your team over the years you've been doing this you mentioned six seven years
saying yeah in that amount of time let alone how the amount of time that the program has been
around how many people they have been able to help in a benefit benefit benefited from this and
as far as that goes piggybacking off of that how has drug court utilized the funds received from
encourage. Oh that's something that our participants absolutely enjoy so when it comes to drug court
you know we follow the Wisconsin state standards and one of those is we have to have a four to
one or a ten to one ratio and what that means is for every you know one sanction we have to have
four positives right or four incentives what we call them we try to do the for every one negative
ten positives so what we've always utilized the encourage funds for is we have buy annual drawing
every single year so that's in the summer and then the winter we do this drawing they're able to
get entries to the drawing by every we get court when they appear if they have no violations it's
you know they done everything they need to then they're able to put their name in that drawing and
then when we do these drawings we go out and we get oh man we just had one not long ago and we get
you know air friars pots and pans like those big ticket items that a lot of these participants
never could dream of purchasing on their own we do some fun stuff to you know one year we got
like a volleyball net that you can hang out outside you know stuff like that so we use those
funds to buy those items for those drawing and I mean participants really look forward to that
because that's just you know it's that instinct unfortunately it's not an instant gratification
because they have to wait but getting that name in that drawing you'd be surprised when people have
because as the program goes on they are able to go to like less court you know less responsibilities
and some of them are sad about that because they want to get more more entries into the drawing
and you're like well you know you got to realize this is kind of how it works so it's just such a
phenomenal thing you're doing well exactly and a lot of them struggle with that because they want
more entries into it but that's something that's such an incentive and reward for completing
that part of the program or or advancing in something and that's amazing yeah one thing I don't
think people realize when it comes to overcoming addiction is how low your confidence is in those
moments and and how the shame and so much of that can be no matter who the addict is 99% of them
are going to be dealing and struggling with something along those lines and then that that's
while they're dealing with it while they're on the stuff while they're quote unquote higher or
anything once they're off that shame and that lack of confidence only increases like 10 fold so
every there is no small wins there is no small victories with something like this that makes you
feel good that's a confidence booster that's a little bit of a nudge up in that confidence
and every little bit adds up every little bit helps so I don't make light it that's a great
program it's a great idea yeah we actually we just started implementing which we're gonna
switch to using some of our encourage funds for as well as we do a bingo card so that's more of
a instant gratification kind of thing so every single phase it's a five five five phase program
sorry and every phase we go through goals for them they can be super simple like making you know
five clean you ways like something really really basic or I had the other day somebody added they
wanted to get a mop for their house so something that we see is something so that's every day
life right for them that was huge for him to be able to get so we put it on his bingo card
right and once he gets a bingo we do a five dollar incentive and then when they get a blackout
it's a twenty five dollar incentive so that's something that you know we get him gift cards to
various we're giving back to the community too you know I got gift cards for cravings or
roger cinema stuff like that for stuff like that and they absolutely they love that and that's
where like it helps some of those earlier ones we don't have to wait till the drawing right it's
more of an instant gratification and they're the ones doing it's not like I'm just getting my
pad on the back like they completed their goals so then they're getting a reward for that well
in the gift card to the local establishments I mean there's so many positives to that from an
economic standpoint but it gives them some normalcy absolutely they're they're out with everybody
else so when you talked about the confidence James I would think that that would be big yeah yeah
it's really big yeah we're speaking with Cassandra Abney from the Wood County adult drug treatment
and Kim shields from encourage and just had a couple of side questions before we get into some
details about how people could donate and find out more about the drug court information if you
need that follow questions or anything absolutely I'm curious in the time that you've been doing this
and the time the drug court has been around is the approach towards marijuana changed at all
as our states have changed as our laws have looked at these things differently we're already seeing
the court systems going back and taking a lot of those old cases off the off people's records and
everything is there any and do you have any information do you know anything about that have you
seen anything regarding that as a change or any change in the the clients that you have or anything
okay um I mean we definitely hear it right you know like oh it's going to be legal so we should
be able to you know we are complete you have to be absent so you cannot you drugs at all learn
a program um you know but we still we hear that you know when they get to the end some of them
that's not me Cassandra I just worded that right I'm sorry uh what what I was curious of is certainly
not that it's being taken lightly or anything like that but if you're seeing less of of those kind
of clients of people with marijuana you know uh cases and everything yeah actually we are we're
seeing a lot less I I want to say in the last probably handful years I don't have anyone that's
actually in right now in possession of marijuana it's all you know methamphetamine narcotics um
you know those are kind of the big things so I do see that last I bring it up just in part because
obviously the topic is nationwide about legalization a lot of that but also uh so we can put our
focus a little bit here uh not to say that you take your eye off the ball with any of these things
but okay well that that is working it's I want to see it's working itself out but it it is
societally okay fentanyl um meth these things they need our attention we need to be focusing on these
things and and being able to give us in our audience a little bit more of a focus on that stuff if
you don't if you will yeah um and I'm I'm also curious about how when it comes to the the the
stigmas or the different things that you deal with in this position and your clients deal with
the people that are trying to go through this um I mentioned my background I I'm already
familiar with this but I don't know how much the audience is and especially when they are doing
some of these things themselves um the the people that are trying to go through this are community
members are taxpayers and if you don't care about their health or their mental well you know being
or anything you gotta care about that you probably like your tax dollars to be lower you'd probably
like your tax dollars to be reasonable more and more people paying taxes means lower taxes
more and more people in the workforce means a better workforce this all adds up we're not doing
this out of the goodness just out of the goodness of our hearts or anything this has an economic
impact this has a societal impact that all everybody can get behind I would think but when it comes
to some of the naysay or some of the pushback that you get or what is some of the like stigmas we
can tear off of on this or we can get it to one okay well that's I was gonna thank you for
telling your story and telling you know because there is such a stigma against this it's a huge
stigma so you know that's kind of the hard part why we have such a large team um because that kind
of helps us kind of I don't want to say get rid of the stigmas there's always going to be one but
at the end of the day they see law enforcement at a different light they see the judge in a different
light you know stuff like that and vice versa you know when our participants come in contact with
law enforcement no matter what they have to announce that they're part of our program that is
actually a rule of the program you know so then we get these calls and they're like hey this person
looks really well are they doing really good in drug court you know so it's I feel like being in
our program and our program in general is reducing that stigma a little bit because kind of like
you said these are our neighbors these are our kids teachers these are you know they're people in
our community that the end of the day we're trying to better our community as a whole and these
clients want that as much as we do yeah you know so there can't be it can be one choice that put
this person into active addiction and you know we always talk about talk with my co-worker a lot
about it is that between me and the person that I'm working with we're not much different
it's just because I chose one path and they might have made one other choice you know we both
might have had some trauma in our background and I saw seeing a counselor they saw drugs like
it's just one little choice that they're not much different than us and we can't we have to
realize that we're all this is our community and we if we want to continue to enjoy it and prosper
we have to we have to face this epidemic we absolutely do can't thank you enough for the time
it's been great getting to meet your Cassandra I the only catch is you did too good of a job you're
gonna have to come back now you're gonna have to do this again sometime I'm so sorry if people
have follow up questions I want to know more about drug court or any of the things we've
talked about the day Cassandra how can they get in touch with you so they can get in touch with
me via email or you know if you go on the wood county page like white page we're under the
criminal justice department so my contact info is all on there I'm right in the courthouse it's
an open door you can come visit at any point any questions you know I would love anybody to ask
I'm more than happy to kind of spread the news wood county w i dot gov is the website you
reference there wood county w i dot gov yes thank you and people can actually observe drug court
still correct yes thank you every monday at one o'clock it's open court so anyone can come at any
point I'm there yeah I'm there every single week so if you have questions after I'm more than
happy to answer them appreciate you Cassandra thank you Kim if people have follow up questions for
you or encourage how can they get in touch with you absolutely give us a call at 715
423-3863 or send an email to hello at encouragecf.org and if you would like to support
our unrestricted work or you would like to support drug court specifically you can do that on
our website encouragecf.org and it's on the give page give give now for us there's a drop-down
and for drug court just type it in be sure to bookmark that web page everybody appreciate both of
you so darn much thank you very much thank you all much well a more midday magazine for you
tomorrow right here at ninety seven five fm thirteen twenty a m w f h r locally grown radio
