McHenry County agencies tasked with battling opioid addiction proposing best use of Big Pharma settlement money

From prevention to recovery, dozens of McHenry County agencies fighting the opioid epidemic are proposing the best use of their share of the recent $3.4 million settlement the county was allocated in a global Big Pharma settlement.

The McHenry County Mental Health Board will distribute $1.7 million of the county’s $3.4 million portion of the $26 billion awarded globally last year. The funds are a part of a negotiated settlement of a 2017 lawsuit filed against large opioid manufacturers and distributers.

The mental health board is determining which programs to fund based on “what would have the biggest impact with the money,” said Laura Crain, program coordinator at the McHenry County Substance Abuse Coalition. The board also will choose based on which ideas are in line with its own mission.

Almost 60 agencies and nonprofits that serve McHenry County were asked to provide input, which is being used to help give the mental health board a “clear vision” of the best use of the funds, Crain said.

The abuse coalition was tasked with bringing together agency leaders to develop needs assessments, proposing programs and identifying the county’s greatest needs “right now,” Crain said.

The other half of the $3.4 million will be invested and the interest off that sum will be dispersed and reinvested to create or support addiction prevention and treatment programs, Crain said.

In 2017, when McHenry County joined the lawsuit, 73 deaths because of opioid overdose were recorded, according to the McHenry County Department of Health. That number fell to 49 in 2018 and 31 in 2019. A slight rebound was seen in 2020 to 47. In 2019, the number of deaths recorded was 32.

As of May, eight people have fatally overdosed from opioids with the cause of death in two cases still being determined, according to the McHenry County health department. Another four overdoses have occurred from other drugs.

The money is expected to be made available to the county sometime in August. Those programs chosen would submit formal requests and could see the funding sometime next year, Crain said.

“The board will look at what other agencies provide, what do we have, what do we want, what does our community need and what does that look like,” Crain said.

To Live4Lali Executive Director Laura Fry, that need and want looks like recovery coaches, prevention and tending to mental health issues before they turn into an addiction, also called substance use disorder.

“I believe the majority of substance use disorder comes from mental health and trauma,” Fry said. “We continue to put Band-Aids on what I see is an amputation.”

Live4Lali, based in Arlington Heights, helps provide items to people who are active in their substance use disorder in the hopes they are doing so safely. Through a mobile unit Fry and others travel to suburban Cook, Lake, Kane, DuPage and McHenry counties, providing clean syringes, snorting kits, fentanyl test strips and naloxone.

“OK, let’s get Narcan. OK, let’s get test strips. All of that is important, but what we are never getting to is the why. Why is this happening?” Fry said. “We have a huge shortage of mental health professionals.”

Similarly, Chris Reed, managing partner at Crystal Lake-based Northern Illinois Recovery Center and board president at New Directions Addiction Recovery Services, said the money needs to be put toward something sustainable and long term. It should be used to “fill in the gaps,” such as providing better access to mental health services to people before they turn to drugs and develop a disorder.

There also are gaps in continuing, long-term, outpatient care and personalized treatment plans tailored to the individual and their family, said Reed, who also is in recovery from substance use disorder.

Although millions of dollars will be coming to the county from the settlement, the money will go quickly and “is not nearly enough to solve the issue long term,” Reed said.

“We need to come up with creative ways to serve the uninsured and underinsured,” Reed said. “We need something cost effective and sustainable.”

Reed also supports dedicated funds toward recovery coaches. He employs recovery coaches at his treatment facility. Their salaries are paid for by a grant from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, he said.

A recovery coach is different than a sponsor which is tied to the abstinence-based Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program, which does not work for everyone, said Fry, who is part of a recovery coach program and certified to train other recovery coaches.

“It’s not a one-size fits all recovery,” said Fry, who has been in recovery herself for 40 years and did not go through a 12-step program. “You have to take that person and work with them, their body and mind and soul and figure out what will work best.”

The recovery coach, now billable through Medicaid, is professionally trained and certified, more of a peer and typically someone who has lived the life of addiction, Fry said.

A licensed and certified recovery coach works on a life plan and helps where past approaches have “notoriously” failed, she said.

“We thought [by] sending a person to treatment for 30 days, they come out cured, and we move on. Rarely is that the case,” Fry said. “You can’t cure years of mental health issues that lead to a substance use disorder in 30 days.”

Currently, there are 10 certified recovery coaches available to serve McHenry County, but, Fry said, the county needs more.

“The most important role of a recovery coach is to say, ‘I know where you’re at. I’m on this side now. Let me help you find your way to this side,’” Fry said.

Crain, who said the coalition has four or five ideas for the funding, agrees with Fry that recovery coaches are among the needs in McHenry County.

“I would like to start a recovery coach program to help navigate recovery, like life coaches for substance abuse, and help them manage the day to day,” Crain said.

Crain said a recovery coach also helps teach someone life skills, such as how to write a check or manage a budget.

“We see people who struggle to live in the real would,” Crain said. “A recovery coach would be there for that. To walk that path with you.”

Fry described a recovery coach as “a person with lived experience” who will be there to “bolster” the person trying to recover from substance use disorder.

“We need that person as a peer, right there with you and to work on a life plan that is going to work for you, not just stay off all the drugs,” Fry said. “Ultimately, that might be a great goal, but what if a person is housing challenged, food insufficient, does not have the right family support?”

Crystal Lake Police Chief James Black also supports the money being used for mental health counseling as an intervention before someone develops a substance use disorder, as well as recovery services.

He said the mental health board is the best entity to decide how those funds should be used.

“If services were more accessible, they could reach more people in need,” Black said. “People are so deep in their addiction they don’t reach for services until they hit rock bottom, or a friend dies from an overdose. There is always a need for mental health counseling services, addiction counseling and education. That is the one thing that is really missed nationwide.”

Black said funding should also be put toward mental health counseling, education and prevention at the middle school and high school levels where the kids are “more impressionable.”