Will County health staff push prevention, harm-reduction and better overdose data reporting

At a Will County Board committee meeting, health department staff described a prevention-first approach to substance use that emphasizes trauma-informed services, mental-health treatment and reaching children and families before problems progress to addiction.

The health department representative told the committee that trauma, genetic predisposition and mental health are the three main contributors to substance use and that school-based prevention, social workers and clinicians in schools are high-priority investments. "Anything that's school based or education based is, I would recommend, those are good investments," the staff member said.

Why it matters: committee members noted a recent decline in overdose deaths and pressed staff on how the county measures success. "To go from 111 deaths down to 58 for overdoses, that is a big improvement," a committee member said, adding that prevention effects can be hard to quantify because prevented events leave no direct record.

Services and local programs: staff described several community efforts the county is supporting or coordinating. The sheriff's Substance Use Prevention…