About

A few weeks before Christmas 2011, Brianna Michelle Oberly had a fight with her boyfriend which landed her into jail with an aggravated battery with a weapon charge from the small cut her boyfriend received. What really happened that evening remained a mystery for years. Brianna remained on probation, attending trade school and being a young mother until the call of the above-mentioned boyfriend grew too strong. It is true what they say about the company you keep. Eventually, Bri’s negative decisions led to her being the getaway driver at a home burglary. She ran out of opportunities and was sentenced to ten (10) years of incarceration for her original crime at the age of 19. 

 

Approximately 6.5 years into her prison sentence, Brianna was transferred into the country’s largest women’s prison. The mere size of the compound with its multiple buildings made it all but impossible to employ only female staff. It was not long before Brianna had her own negative sexual experience with male officers here. It was part of the ‘culture’ and commonplace. It was and still is not ok. Brianna’s response to her mother’s desire to “do something” about it was, “Go ahead and fight mom. I am strong and I can take a beating.” The beating she was referring to was the retaliation that can occur against an incarcerated person when someone from the outside ‘makes a stink.’ 

 

Brianna’s name was spoken in local, state, and national offices. She became known to 1000’s of people across social media who had never met her before, but felt like they knew her because they knew her mother who became her voice and the microphone for other incarcerated voices. And so it began.

 

A state Senator personally reached out to the prison at the behest of Brianna’s mom anytime there was concern. This kept her physically safe. There came a Federal report about her facility and sex crimes occurring. Then came the legislative bill. A bodycam pilot program in the facility where Brianna was housed. By this time, Bri and her mother knew that this would not occur during her incarceration there, however, it could be in place for the women she was to leave behind after around nine years, Brianna was freed from prison on September 20, 2021. 

 

Like everyone who spends a fair amount of time in prison, Bri had plans for her freedom. Brianna held two jobs as a server, got an apartment, purchased a car with payments and at the age of 28 she began her life. What she did not plan was the nightmares. The post-traumatic stress of her days and nights behind bars, the victimization of herself and others weighing heavily. Brianna never realized how hard the transition would be or how lonely she would become after having approximately 70 roommates for almost a decade. Like everyone else who has done a fair amount of time, Brianna had matured and grown, but she also was stuck as a 19 year old girl. She had to budget, pay bills, buy groceries, and work at a job for the first time in her life. She was not prepared. Like so many others, the closer to her release date, the more afraid she was of the transition. Her family did not understand so much. They tried, but some things can only be understood by the experience. Then there were the nightmares of secrets hidden away inside her mind that nobody else knows. 

 

Brianna’s environment included friends and coworkers that did not have the same experiences in prison like her. It was hard. She began drinking…daily. Then a coworkers introduced her to cocaine. This helped Bri drink more. Two weeks after that first bump of coke, a mere five months post prison release, on February 1, 2022, Brianna died. While partying with a friend she passed out. She snored loudly then stopped breathing. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Brianna’s heart still beat. Thumping from the efforts to revive her. The declaration came in the hallway of the emergency room in South Florida.

 

On the morning of February 2, 2022, Brianna’s mom woke up and made her coffee. She sat at the computer and opened her social media page. There was a message request from a stranger. It said to call this hospital about Bri. They will not tell us anything because we are not family. I am so sorry.

 

Bri’s mom did not thank the hospital. Her heart began thumping hard as soon as she dialed the phone. She wrote down the information in a notebook. Who was the investigator, time, place, etc. Her heart hurt so bad while also being so numb. She made the calls, ensuring she asked first if they were driving so there would be no car crashes. She called Bri’s grandma (her mom) and said, “Bri’s gone.” Sighing, grandma asked, “Where did she go?” “Brianna is gone. Gone gone.” This call was followed by a call to Brianna’s younger brother who was her best friend growing up, her older sister, her aunt who had adopted her son. A message came in during this time from Bri’s mother’s best friend online to which she only typed, “Bri is gone. My kid is dead.” With these call alerts finished, Brianna’s mom could then feel. She fell to her knees letting loose sobs and along with it were snot and drool. She watched it all fall to the floor. For how long? It is unknown. 

 

As next of kin, Brianna’s mother then stood up and made the 3 hour drive to South Florida. There, with her own mother, they went to the funeral home where they made the arrangements, including arranging the opportunity to see Brianna. The day was a blur. They went to Brianna’s apartment to inform the manager. Both mom and son (Bri’s brother) chased down everyone who knew anything about the end of her life and finally spoke with the investigator. Still taking notes in that notebook. The following day, mom and grandma went to the funeral home where Brianna lay in her hospital gown. Her torso was abnormally large. It was impossible to touch her torso as it would become real. She was not there but they spoke to her. Her mother made a promise that she will never again be a number like in prison and that she will not be forgotten, somehow. Bri’s mom covered her with the blanket and said goodbye. Mom and grandma went to Brianna’s apartment to remove her personal items. Mom saw the dinners in the freezer she had prepared for her because she never learned to cook. Grandma folded her clothes as if for a trip. This was the end. 

 

The family had assumed Brianna had died from fentanyl-laced cocaine. Her mother learned everything about this killer drug. Four months after Brianna had left this Earth, the tox report was in. There was no fentanyl, there were no opioids. Cocaine, Ethanol (alcohol), Cannabis, Cocoaethylene (chemical produced by mixing cocaine with alcohol). People still die from plain ole drugs. 

 

According to Hazeldon Betty Ford approximately 71% of people in addiction recovery began using substances before age 17 and around 10% of those in recovery began before they reached their twelfth birthday. According to harm reduction outreach workers, the number of people who began using substances in adolescence is much, much higher. 

 

“If you attended grade school between 1983 and 2009, then you almost certainly participated in a Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or DARE. In fact, the DARE program was eventually implemented in 75% of U.S. schools in the 1990s and cost taxpayers an estimated $600 million to $750 million per year.” says the American Addiction Centers. As far back as the 90s, resistance-based youth drug programs have shown marginal effects. There are a plethora of studies and articles beyond these few:

 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1448384/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8092361/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10450631/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1615488/

 

Brianna’s mother, Angie Hatfield, remembered serious conversations they had together about prison programs, what is missing in reentry, and especially about the people who a program is for being a part of the creation and evolution of the program. It only made sense for participants to become stakeholders and for programs to be less about a classroom and more like a group setting. Educate but also empower. Educate in a way that anyone can understand the material.

 

Angie began like we all do, in the beginning. She talked to people. She came to youth crime prevention groups, with Brianna’s urn in tow, to tell youth what happens to the people they leave behind if they die. She taught the kids to recognize and respond to overdose and what are fentanyl test strips and how to use them. Nobody learns from someone else’s mistakes, so she discussed brain maturity and how waiting to try substances until their mid 20s when they have their feet on the ground and their brains and bodies have had the opportunity to grow may be a good idea. And she told them how to reduce harms that can occur from using drugs. She met with a local sheriff and shared this experience with him. The sheriffs have a first hand view of the streets and how young people often make mistakes that they cannot return and he loved the reality. So Angie researched. Stanford University’s Safety First youth harm reduction was promising, but still a class type program and would not be effective with the highest risk youth in her opinion. Curtin University Australia’s SHAHRP was very interactive, but was primarily about alcohol. Iceland, along with a few other European countries were very promising, but they required three elements: self, family/home, community. Canada had some interesting college-type programs as well. 

 

Then the work began with inspiration from all these programs plus experience in street harm reduction and great support from youth crime preventionists. Future Fuel slowly began to take shape. Harm reduction education from people with lived experience with substances and/or incarceration and/or similar backgrounds. The number one harm reduction method is DO NOT USE. We need to know why young people may use substances: stress, peers, curiosity, trauma response, Adverse Childhood Experience, normalization. The question came to mind, “Why do we train adults to recognize and respond to various types of overdoses, but we do not train youth?” Empowerment came into play then. Empower young people to react to situations in a real way, not just what they think we want to hear. Role plays are a fun way to trial situations that may occur and the kids must feel safe to be their authentic selves so we have no wrong answers (mostly) in the program and treat it as a group setting. But how do we get the information across? Education is important and there is a lot of it because we have divided substances into the following groups: stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, opioids, and cannabis. Great educators understand their students' methods of learning as see, hear, do. All the information was added to slides which are then introduced by facilitators, but also taught by the participants themselves. Empowerment. The kids who have had experience with a particular substance can teach us using the slides, but also from their own experiences. 

 

Then we began Future Fuel Youth Harm Reduction +Prevention. We created a parents session to train them on overdoses, let them know what their children will learn, and how to talk to your kids about drugs utilizing SAMSHA’s “Talk, They Hear You.” Polk, Pasco, and Orange County had very small attendance at the parents sessions. Each session included a discussion on how it could improve. And we listened and improved. Now we have a solid parent and caregivers program that covers the why’s of youth substance use, overdose reversal, and conversations with kids using the see, hear, do method, including role plays and interactive exercises. We have partnered with one Florida prison facility and are currently planning a train the trainer portion to continue programming after we have gone. 

 

We ran community-based Future Fuel youth in Highlands and Polk Counties, Florida which is a 7-9 session program. Then we developed an intensive two-day program specifically for youth crisis shelters of which we have partnered with shelters in Brevard, Hernando, Pasco, Polk, and Putnam counties thus far. Over the weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, we spend about four hours covering all the substances and the why’s and brain development and overdoses. And we evolved. Every single FF session included feedback on paper, but also verbal feedback on how we can improve and engage. Every session kids added advice on their feedback forms and discussed improvements. 

 

The program became highly interactive and competitive. The group forms two teams which they name and activities are competitive with one team scoring a point. Teams have pictures to make their own Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they guess what substances have the most caffeine, they perform role plays (which are judged by shelter workers with feedback, measure risks, and more. Each activity needed a timer. Music brings us together so a music video became the timer for activities which results in some singing and dancing as well. Videos are occasionally refreshed and exchanged for new videos, but they are always without cuss words or nudity of any sort. For extra point earning opportunities, we have “finish the lyrics” intermingled throughout the program. 

 

We added some public speaking and civics in the program by debating cannabis legalization or writing a bill which becomes a law then presenting it to continue empowerment and build skills. Youth receive packets with all the substance education, overdose information, and mental health whys as well as resources. In the end, we play a FF Showdown jeopardy-style game. In that game, we are also seeing how well the participants have retained the education. It is astounding! 

 

The past two paragraphs with descriptors and amazing additions and the evolution of Future Fuel is directly stemmed from our own participants, continually helping us make this program more engaging and impactful. The impact can be seen throughout the course of the program. Facilitators share early on why they are there, what their own experiences were. Participants respond to the transparency, honesty, and reality of the program and its facilitators. They appreciate the time given and others experiences while sharing their own. Most importantly they respond to the respect they are shown as the drivers of their own futures and that we do not tell them what to do or say, but educate and empower them to make the decisions that are right for them and to understand the possible consequences. Because Angie Hatfield still brings Brianna. 

​

She shares with them what it is like to outlive one’s own child. It is never scripted and therefore each time is new. Sometimes she goes back to the day she knew Brianna was dead. She describes what it was like walking into the room where the body which came from her body lay there on a table, empty. She may share the promise she made there. She always share there was no fentanyl and she had just began using substances and what they were. Sometimes she tells them it felt like a heart attack and she laid on the bed to let it take her. Maybe she tells them how she sat, waiting for her time to end, but it never did. Then she may add that the sitting caused her to run out of money, with nobody to take care of her so she became homeless living in daily survival mode, but learning how many people cared all over the state, caring enough to bring her in here and there. She may add she is barely above that status right now, but she has a small, cheap place to rent and a low-paying part time job to allow her to travel and do this because…she tells them that if at any time the participants are out and about and something from the program, or our experiences, pops in their head and has some sort of effect on them, that means Brianna is still here in some way. That her energy has carried into the world in their hearts and lives on. And that helps Bri’s mom live on because she cannot let go and she cannot bear to think of other moms going through this life long tragedy, walking out their days with one foot in the land of the living and one in the land of the dead. So please remember us in your days to come and think about how you want to react to situations. 

 

Future Fuel Youth Harm Reduction +Prevention is highly impactful, very educational, empowering, honest, transparent, and extremely different. It is truly one-of-a-kind thanks to facilitators and participants alike thoughtfully evolving and growing. We all know ‘something different’ is needed.

​

We have moved operations center to Orange County, Florida as of 2026 and the future looks bright! Please join us as we prepare for our next stage.