BROWNSTOWN — County commissioners and council members recently approved the use of opioid settlement funds for a county Sequential Intercept Mapping aka SIM project.

JL Brewer, representing the Jackson County Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council (JRAC), spoke about the project during commissioner and county council meetings this week at the courthouse.

“Basically, the SIM is a mapping project that will be done in the county to help better understand how we handle and deal with folks throughout the criminal justice system for drug use, mental health issues — everything from the time someone calls 911 or contacts emergency dispatch, all the way through criminal sentencing, if there is such, [and] how the hospital handles them, and how probation and community corrections handle those folks,” Brewer said at Tuesday morning’s commissioner meeting.

Brewer said the SIM project is important for JRAC because it enables members of the council to identify areas of need and apply for grants.

JRAC will host the project over a day-and-a-half-long session on Thursday, Nov. 14, and Friday, Nov. 15 at Camp Pyoca in Brownstown. Brewer encouraged the commissioners to attend the session.

“It’s important to have decision-makers and policymakers in the room,” Brewer said. “[The session] helps provide information a lot of information on how cases are handled.”

Brewer said he does not anticipate JRAC needing more than $5,000 for the project.

Commissioners approved up to a $5,000 expenditure for the project.

Brewer also sought approval of the project from the county council Wednesday morning.

“Ultimately, what this process does is help us put us in a better position to obtain additional funding through grants and other sources,” Brewer said.

Councilman Brian Thompson asked Brewer if he had any previous experience or spoken with people who have been involved in the SIM process before. Brewer said he participated in the SIM process in Jennings County earlier this year.

Thompson also had questions regarding what entity oversees SIM projects. Brewer said facilitators from National Alliance on Mental Illness Indiana, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department and Indiana University will supervise the session.

“They just ask the questions,” Brewer said. “It’s up to us, the locals, to answer the questions, and then they map all that out and say, ‘This is what you have, and this is how this could or should flow.’”

Brewer said Jennings County’s SIM project helped the county realize there were processes the county should have been implementing that they were not.

“They were able to obtain some grants to help with some of those processes,” Brewer said. “One of them is a pre-trial program to help ensure people show up to court.”

Required attendees of the session include the county sheriff, judges, county prosecutor, county public defender, council members and commissioners, Brewer explained.

“We have sent invites to all the required members … but we’ve also sent invites to the Brownstown Police Department, Seymour Police Department, Crothersville, Medora — all the local municipality police agencies,” Brewer said.

In total, JRAC has sent 50 invites out to local officials and organizations.

“We have all these resources (for mental health and addiction), but it’s never appeared to me that everyone’s pulling in the same direction,” Thompson said.

He then asked Brewer if the SIM project could be a vehicle for which the county sets forth on a united path.

“Yes, I think so,” Brewer said. “I think things are getting a lot better. Obviously, there’s always room for improvement.”

In accordance with the commissioners, council members also approved the use of up to $5,000 of opioid settlement funds for the project.