Governor Josh Shapiro traveled to rural Wyoming County this week to discuss a statistic that represents both progress and ongoing urgency: Pennsylvania's daily overdose deaths have dropped from 15 in 2020 to six this past week. The Thursday roundtable at the county's Emergency Management Agency in Tunkhannock brought together state officials and frontline workers to examine what's working and what challenges remain.
"While that is cause to acknowledge the good work that we are all doing together and celebrate that, no one should leave here feeling as though the job is done, because we're still losing six Pennsylvanians every single day, which is six too many," Shapiro said during the discussion that coincided with the release of Pennsylvania's Overdose Prevention Program Annual Report. The governor, joined by state Drug & Alcohol Programs Secretary Dr. Latika Davis-Jones and Health Secretary Dr. Debra Bogen, spent an hour listening to Wyoming County District Attorney Joe Peters and substance abuse prevention and recovery workers describe a collaborative approach that's yielded results in this rural community northeast of Harrisburg.
Prevention in Schools and Communities
One of the roundtable's most compelling presentations came from Cammie Anderson, a drug and alcohol prevention education supervisor who works full-time in the Tunkhannock Area School District. Anderson starts teaching medicine safety to students as early as kindergarten and provides intervention throughout their education.
"I am just so passionate about prevention and feel that it is so important, not that any of the treatment work that's being done isn't amazing too, but, you know, my goal is always to kind of have less people coming through your doors," Anderson said. Her work differs from the school's mental health counselors but operates in coordination with them. She works with children from families affected by addiction, helping them navigate experiences that range from watching a parent return from recovery to finding a parent dead from an overdose.
When Shapiro noted that Pennsylvania provided $300 million for schools to hire mental health professionals, Anderson made a specific request: "I think funding needs to be so that all counties, all school districts, could have a drug and alcohol person sitting in that school. I just think that's what works."
What Wyoming County Needs
Beyond school-based prevention, roundtable participants identified several critical needs. The state Department of Drug & Alcohol Programs has distributed more than 800,000 doses of naloxone and more than 700,000 test strips to frontline organizations, but workers emphasized the importance of continuing this supply chain so counties can distribute the overdose-reversal drug throughout their communities.
Participants also addressed persistent stigma around substance use disorder and advocated for expanded student loan forgiveness programs to attract people into advanced careers in recovery work. They suggested streamlining funding mechanisms to make it easier to hire prevention and recovery staff. District Attorney Peters highlighted the county's co-responder program, where a specially trained worker accompanies law enforcement to mental health-related calls. "Once everybody's safe, the police can go on and do their thing, and this person takes that warm hand off, this co-responder, and delivers that person to treatment," Peters explained. The county funds the position through opioid settlement money and contributions from a mental health provider. Shapiro indicated that the state would study Wyoming County's funding model to potentially streamline similar programs elsewhere.
Collaboration as Strategy
What Shapiro observed during the hour-long discussion was a network of professionals who know each other and understand available resources across multiple sectors.
Bob Carpenter, executive director of Emergency Medical Services of Northeastern Pennsylvania Inc., described the value of this approach. "We were able to network and get to know each other and know what resources are available," Carpenter said. "So coming to the table and working together through problems, you know, it's not just one perspective looking at what the problem is, but it's multiple different perspectives."
Federal Funding Turbulence
The roundtable occurred just days after the federal government created chaos by canceling approximately $2 billion in mental health and addiction grants nationwide, only to restore the funding within 24 hours following political backlash. Bogen confirmed Pennsylvania received termination notices for two grants, both subsequently reinstated.
Shapiro used the incident to emphasize his administration's broader battles with federal funding. "Over the course of the last year, the federal government has tried to take away nearly $5 billion worth of money that has been earmarked to or appropriated for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," Shapiro said. "Each time I've taken them to court and won and gotten the money back for our Commonwealth." He framed the issue around taxpayer equity. "I'm going to continue to stand up to ensure the dollars, whether they go to helping people with addiction, or making sure that our air is clean to breathe, and everything in between, that those dollars make their way to Pennsylvania."
What's at Stake
Wyoming County's experience illustrates both the potential and the fragility of community-based approaches to the overdose crisis. Success requires sustained funding, professional collaboration, early intervention in schools, accessible treatment, and community distribution of life-saving medications.
When these elements work together, daily death tolls can drop by more than half. But the progress remains precarious. Federal funding can vanish overnight, even if temporarily. State resources require continuous advocacy. And perhaps most critically, six Pennsylvania families still receive devastating news every single day—news that prevention and treatment programs exist specifically to prevent.
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