County reviews suicide postvention ideas, opioid settlement update

By Steve Van Kooten

The Crawford County Health and Human Services Department (DHHS) Board received several updates during their July 8 meeting, including the county’s cooperative effort to establish improved “postvention” services for incidents of suicide and traumatic events.

DHHS Director Dan McWilliams said multiple suicides in the Prairie du Chien area and Crawford County prompted a discussion within the Mental Health Coalition about local emergency response services for traumatic events. The coalition concluded that improvements could be made to the available postvention services.

McWilliams said that members of emergency response services did not feel there was enough support to address the needs of families and victims in the aftermath of a traumatic event.

Public Health Officer Sonya Lenzendorf attended a conference on suicide and tragic event response, which included a presentation from the Chippewa Falls Area School District about their multi-agency response plan.

“It was basically a county and their partners and schools getting together and saying, ‘When this occurs, because you will not prevent all suicides,’ what do we do to take care of people, and at the same time, how can we be thoughtful in how we do prevention efforts?’” McWilliams said.

The plan produced a manual that details the responsibilities of each agency involved with suicide response. The plan can be used to address other traumatic events, like fatal car crashes or accidental deaths.

“These are the kind of evidence-based ways to handle it and the right messages to put out,” Lenzendorf said.

“Basically, everyone was owning their part,” McWilliams continued.

He added that the county will continue to develop preventative measures and postvention services. “We want to stop as many of these as possible, but there will always be a need for these services.”

To gauge community interest, Lenzendorf reached out to various community stakeholders about a meeting. In early July, representatives from Crossing Rivers Health, DHHS, local law enforcement agencies and other organizations had their first meeting to discuss cooperative postvention efforts for the Crawford County.

“I think there was enough excitement in the room for people to say this is important to do, and we want to proceed,” said McWilliams. “There were more people in the room that had not been in the room before, and they all agreed we have got to do something.”

For the moment, the county and other agencies will assess the community’s needs, explore training options for public workers and look at grant opportunities to help cover expenses.

“Obviously, there is always a cost to these things,” McWilliams said.

“When we talk about commitment from organizations, we are talking about potentially financially [sic], sending staff for training and a commitment [to make] an internal process that won’t die... If we do it, we want it to last,” said Lenzendorf.

Opioid settlement

McWilliams presented updated numbers from the opioid settlements to the board, including a closer estimate of the county’s financial award from the lawsuit.

As of July 8, Crawford County had received approximately $206,000 and should receive around $816,000 in total from pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and retail pharmacies. Payments are expected to be completed by 2038.

McWilliams estimated the county has spent about $2,000 of the money so far. The county’s finance committee allocated a portion of the money to two projects: an increase in substance abuse treatment services to inmates at the Crawford County Jail and the possible drop-in center project in Prairie du Chien.

Other business

• Lenzendorf reported there were 352 responses for the community health assessment survey sent out last month. The department expects to get the aggregated results later in the week.

• Crawford County has seen an increase in cases of whooping cough over the last month.

Eight new reports of communicable diseases were made to the department. The majority of cases were Lyme disease.