According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, more than 90 percent of people with a substance problem began smoking, drinking or using other drugs before age 18.
A Ball State social work class has been working with A Better Life: Brianna's Hope throughout the semester to help them achieve nonprofit status.
The goal of ABLBH is to serve as a support and recovery group for those battling substance abuse. The group’s priority is to try to help anybody who wants and needs detox and rehab. As of April 13, the group had sent 137 people to treatment and the class had raised $1,200.
Randy Davis founded ABLBH in November 2014 and there are currently five chapters of the organization around Indiana. Brianna DiBattiste battled a heroin addiction and went missing in June 2014. Her body was found 10 weeks later.
Davis had been of a friend of the DiBattiste family, and he said the substance abuse issues around Indiana are so great, and people have found the comfort, help and support they need in attending group meetings ABLBH holds.
“Every small community and large community is hit with this horrible epidemic, mainly with heroin at this time," Davis said. "We just want to be there to help, to support, I’ve felt for years like those who are struggling with substance abuse have been somewhat abused themselves because when they try to climb out of a hole, we stomp their hands instead of giving them a hand up, and we just want to be there. We’re seeing lives change, lives saved. It’s dramatic.”
Social work professor Phil Suman happened to be in a group that Davis was speaking to in Portland, Ind., and Suman offered to have his class to help the organization. The primary mission of the class was organizational management in social work, so they finished the paperwork for a 501c3, did fundraising and completed bylaws.
“From my point of view, they’ve been able to see a real organization in action from the ground floor,” Suman said. “It’s taken some of the things they’ve learned in the textbook and put it into real-life practice, so I think there’s been a lot of benefit there. They’ve seen what it means to go through federal tax filing. … It’s not something that a lot of students at this level get an opportunity to do.”
Suman said the students have also seen the positive impact that a human service organization has in the community. Students in the class have also been able to attend some of the organization’s group meetings.
Social work majors get to work in community organizations, but Suman’s class is the only one he knows of that works with new and developing organizations. He said he's gotten great feedback from both the students and the organization.
“It’s been very rewarding for me. These students have worked really hard, and they’ve shown a lot of progress, so I’ve really appreciated watching them grow and learn in a way that I think is unique,” he said.
Senior social work major Joe Niskanen has overseen the project, and he said this class is often called one of the harder social work classes, but they haven't run into any speed bumps so far.
“Week four or five, [Suman] got really somber and he was like ‘I’m really concerned about you guys because nobody’s pulling each other’s hair out yet,’" Niskanen said. "The group is just amazing, and it’s been nothing but a pleasure to work with A Better Life.”
Alex Jahovic, a senior social work major, said the best way to describe the experience is rewarding because of how much ABLBH has prospered and the progress that has been made.
“It’s just like amazing how in so little time, how so much they’ve grown,” Jahovic said. "I actually went to 10 funerals two summers ago, of all that were friends who were addicts who lost their lives to substance abuse... if this was in my community... it would have made all the difference."
Senior social work major Payton Lill said the class has been rewarding, and she has seen ABLBH impact the community in a positive way. Lill's uncle was an addict, and she said if he would have been in a program like ABLBH, his life would have been different.
“You think of like AA meetings as, like, this strict, like, I don’t know, kind of scary experience, but with his meetings, it felt like family,” Lill said. “[The clients] were very welcoming, thankful and you can tell how they have a tight support system in place, and it’s really awesome.”
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