Bruner’s Story One Of Several In Season Two Of JCAP Series
By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews
WARSAW — Derek Bruner believed he was going to be addicted to drugs forever.
Using them had been motivated by abuse at a young age. However, Bruner said Kosciusko County’s Jail Chemical Addiction Program (JCAP) helped change his life.
“In those four months (of the program), something changed where I (saw) people coming in and just loving me at my worst, everybody came in and just loved me at my worst,” he said. “And I realized like they don’t see me as an addict or a victim, they see me as a person that’s struggling, but they don’t identify me as that person, why do I identify myself as that person?”
“So when I started thinking like that … I started healing from my past,” he continued. “I started opening up to the counselors there. I started just being real instead of a fake real. … Finally they broke me down and I was just like, OK, I don’t have to be this person anymore.”
That perspective was one of the stories included in season 2 of the documentary series on the county’s JCAP program. It was produced by DreamOn Studios of Warsaw.
JCAP is a drug treatment program for selected inmates at the Kosciusko County Jail. It’s one of a number across the state of Indiana.
A premiere for season 2 was held on Tuesday night, Jan. 25, at the Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center. Among those attending were supporters of the program, including Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer. Others included employees of the sheriff’s office and former JCAP graduates.
DreamOn previously released season 1 of the series in summer 2020. Season 2 primarily shows the men of the JCAP class who graduated on Nov. 12, 2021.
The series shows them in various aspects of the class, including fitness, life skills and mock interviews, and features interviews with sheriff’s office staff involved with the program and Kosciusko County Work Release, including Kosciusko County Sheriff Kyle Dukes, JCAP Coordinator Courtney Jenkins, Jail Commander 1st. Sgt. Shane Coney and Work Release Director Heather Desenberg.
Men and women from other JCAP sessions are also featured, including Bruner, who graduated in June 2021.
The series shows Bruner as he travels to both Wawasee and Tippecanoe Valley high schools to speak with students about his life experience.
It also includes his father, Shaun Bruner, talking about how JCAP helped his son.
Bruner said the change in his son left him “in disbelief.”
“He finally said to me after JCAP that he doesn’t want that life anymore,” said Shaun Bruner. “I go, ‘Do you still have cravings?’ He goes, ‘I always will have cravings, but I don’t want that life.’ And he wants to give back. He wants to go out there every Saturday and help. That’s what the JCAP program has done.”
“It’s a big mind-changer,” Shaun Bruner continued. “The relationship between me and him, Brenda my wife the other day goes, ‘We’ve got the old Derek back, this is the fourth-grade Derek, we’ve got him back.’ Praise the Lord. Praise Courtney. I want to jump up and say ‘Hallelujah.'”
Along with showing the four episodes of the series, the night also included emcee Scott Greene chatting with Jenkins, Coney, Dukes and Desenberg.
A more poignant note came toward the end of the night as a slide was shown in memory of Shanda Spacy. Spacy graduated with the very first women’s JCAP class in February 2019. However, she ended up relapsing and passing away from a drug overdose in 2020.
“She’s a constant reminder of why we keep pushing forward and trying to help the program grow and bring more and more volunteers in because we understand that community connection … that’s where we make up those gains and hopefully prevent this from happening again,” said Jenkins regarding Spacy.
People may watch the series online starting on Sunday, Jan. 30. The first episode will premiere at 8 p.m. on that night on the sheriff’s office Facebook page, with the others to follow.
In the meantime, people can check out all of season 1 and the trailer for season 2 under the videos tab on the page.