Illinois legislators are pushing for measures to help social workers deal with overdoses and to attract more people to the field.
Now in the Illinois House, Senate Bill 3779 would allow a clinical social worker or social worker to possess and administer naloxone, an opioid antagonists.
In the past decade, state Sen. Karina Villa, D-West Chicago, said opioid deaths have increased by 3,341% in Illinois. One reason why there could be an increase in overdoses is the pandemic lockdowns.
“Before COVID started there was a lot of conversation about addictions and overdoses and then the shutdown happened and the conversation had to shift,” said Villa. “As the conversation had to shift away from these overdoses and finding solutions, more and more people got addicted because we know the mental health issues that came as a result of the pandemic.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a stay-at-home executive order in March of 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the stay-at-home orders lasted through May of that year, the governor’s executive orders limiting economic activity, in-person school and other aspects of life lasted over three years.
Villa’s bill adds the administering power for naloxone is not within the scope of a social worker’s practice. Kyle Hillman, National Association of Social Workers Illinois legislative chair, said crisis response teams are currently saying the liability risk with social workers administering naloxone is too high.
“You and I as public citizens could carry and administer [naloxone] but when that social worker moves to their professional capacity they no longer have the ability to administer [naloxone] under current statute,” said Hillman. “A nurse at home could administer a shot to their child at home but if that nurse administered it to someone else outside of their scope, then it would become a liability concern the same thing is true for [naloxone].”
