RAPID CITY – As the old saying goes, oftentimes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Chissie Spencer and Ruth Cedar Face, traditional drug, alcohol, and trauma healers from the Pine Ridge Reservation, have partnered with Pennington County State’s Attorney Mark Vargo and Sheriff Kevin Thom to bring healing classes to drug possession defendants instead of prosecution. A defendant’s record may be expunged if the graduation from the classes is achieved along with a year of sobriety.

Spencer’s and Cedar Face’s classes are called the Seven Directions program, and have roots in Lakota culture. They feature traditional ceremonies like the Wiping of Tears, smudging, and Lakota name giving. “Everything we do is clinical, but we use it in our traditional ways,” said Cedar Face, a resident of Porcupine and a licensed addiction counselor.

Seven Directions marks the first time in many years that smudging has been practiced in the jail. Jail Commander Rob Yantis says in the past there has been a lack of volunteer effort to bring those services in, but with Spencer and Cedar Face the future looks bright for such ceremonies.

The classes are a 10-week process and since last spring there have been five classes, three male and two female, completed in the jail with 39 graduates. Currently there is a male and female class being conducted in the jail.

There have also been Seven Directions programs being held in the Fork Real Community Café, and graduates of the jail programing are encouraged to attend them after the jail’s graduation. Prospectively, in the near future, Spencer and Cedar Face will be extending their programing to the Care Campus.

A male graduate of the program said “the class helped me reflect on myself… I really want that change in life and to learn about my culture.” He currently attends programing at the Fork Real Café and is continually interested in learning about his Lakota culture and what it teaches him about living a different life.

Chissie Spencer, director of Project AWARE at Crazy Horse School and Seven Directions, has been subject to immense change through discovering Lakota culture as well. “I grew up in an alcoholic home, an abusive home,” he said “all the people surrounding me had been incarcerated. All of the men would say ‘if you want to be a man then you have to go to prison.’”

Spencer went on to be incarcerated at a young age, and his grandmother had told him that he was put on this earth for more than the path that he was pursuing. His path in life changed after time in jail, treatment, and participation in his culture. He has since graduated college, been sober for 29 years while helping in jails since 1993, and his definition of being a man now includes “helping your people and protecting your family.” This last week Spencer traveled to Texas to meet with a regional jail director that oversees four states.

Ruth Cedar Face works at Little Wound School and, like Spencer, is also a Project AWARE coordinator as well as Seven Directions. “We really want to ground people and give them an identity, or reconnect them with something they previously knew and since have lost,” she said.

Cedar Face believes strongly that the ceremonies that Seven Directions program brings to the jail not only ground people in their culture, but also have healthy benefits for addiction and trauma. She said the Wiping of Tears and, if allowed, participation in a sweat lodge seems to be the most therapeutic. She encourages anyone with questions to contact the State’s Attorney’s Office or her via Facebook.

Not only does the Seven Directions program make an immense initiative from Cedar Face and Spencer from the Pine Ridge Reservation, but also administration of the penial system. States Attorney Mark Vargo, Jail Commander Rob Yantis, and Chief Deputy Brian Mueller were all in attendance at the press conference held on the 24th of February. All three of them expressed their excitement for what Seven Directions brings to the table.

“The pilot programs have shown great promise,” said Mark Vargo about Seven Directions. Vargo recognizes that releasing inmates back into the same environment that they were incarcerated from does not work well, and they will most likely become repeat offenders back at square one. “We want people out of the system and to interrupt the cycle. You do the work, but we make it possible,” Vargo said.

Jail Commander Rob Yantis said that he has seen “immediate gratefulness with a profound impact” in the jail. And went on to recall specific stories from inmates that had shown a change of behavior and direct impact from Seven Directions.

(Contact Travis at travisldewes@gmail.com)