DuPage County Report
Wheaton – DuPage County received seven Achievement Awards from the National Association of Counties (NACo). The awards honor innovative, effective county government programs that strengthen services for residents.
“DuPage County strives to be a leader at the state and national levels. We’re proud to share information about our initiatives with other government leaders nationwide. And we are gratified to receive this recognition from NACo,” said County Board Chair Deborah Conroy.
Each year, NACo’s Achievement Awards recognize outstanding programming in 18 categories aligned with the vast, comprehensive services counties provide. The categories include children and youth, criminal justice and public safety, libraries, management, information technology, health, civic engagement and more.
Launched in 1970, the program is designed to celebrate innovation in county government. Each nominated program is judged on its own merits and not against other applications.
“The Achievement Awards recognize excellence in county government and effective public service,” said NACo President Mary Jo McGuire. “This year’s winners have delivered results for our residents and demonstrated innovative efforts to strengthen our communities.”
DuPage County won awards for the following programs:
Back to School, Back to Work
The “Back to School, Back to Work” initiative was designed by workNet DuPage to assist parents who took an extended career break to take care of their children but are now planning a return to the workforce. This initiative identified the specific challenges and concerns parents reported experiencing and then developed and delivered customized solutions, including job search workshops, digital confidence and workplace computer skills courses, and access to funding for occupational training programs.
Realtime Winter Weather Solution
DuPage County maintains more than 1,000 miles of roadway lanes that must be plowed during the wintertime. The County’s Information Technology Department and Division of Transportation developed a real-time application that tracks and monitors snowplow operations during a snow event to track the location of the snowplow, temperature of the roadway, salt usage from each plow truck, and recency of a roadway being cleared.
Municipal Infrastructure Match-Share Grant Program
DuPage County Stormwater Management developed and funded a Municipal Match Share Program for Stormwater Capital Infrastructure with an eye toward assisting local communities with needed infrastructure improvements to improve stormwater operations during severe storms.
DuPage County Website Redesign
The County redefined its online interaction with residents through a significant website redesign in 2023. Staff restructured the homepage to prominently feature high-demand services, addressing 80 percent of user needs without needing to scroll. The redesign also involved a meticulous paring down of 12 years’ worth of accumulated content and documents, streamlining the site to make it more manageable and significantly more useful to residents.
Police Transparency and Crime Data Portal
In 2022, the DuPage County Judicial and Public Safety Committee and the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office sought ways to increase transparency regarding crime statistics countywide. Staff developed an online portal that would share data with both law enforcement and the public. Officers can easily analyze data and observe trends and movement of crime throughout the County.
18th Judicial Circuit Court QR Code Project
This project was a collaboration of the courts, law enforcement, advocacy groups and other organizations working together to improve the systems’ response to domestic violence. With this mission in mind, the County created a QR code to help victims of domestic violence quickly and safely seek the resources that they need. The County also distributed the QR Code to public and private entities to spread the awareness of these resources.
Guardianship Family Engagement Mediation Program
The 18th Judicial Circuit Court Guardianship Family Engagement Mediation Program is a mediation program for families in the Probate Court who can be referred to a no-cost mediation program to work with a trained professional mediator. The goal is to provide the parties in the court case with an opportunity to sit down with the help of a neutral third party to reach agreements that have allowed them to collaborate to support and improve the health, education, safety, and stability of children.
For more information about NACo’s Achievement Awards, click here.
In other news received from DuPage County…
DuPage County will host Senior Fair on Fri., June 14
To recognize World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on June 15, DuPage County will host a Senior Fair from 11AM to 2PM on Fri., June 14, 2024, at 421 N. County Farm Road, Wheaton.
The event will feature agencies that provide services for older adults and their caregivers in the County. Everyone who attends the event will get a free raffle ticket for a chance at a donated gift basket. The event will be held in the first-floor auditorium and feature more than 30 providers.
Some of the agencies that will be attending include DuPage County Community Services, NAMI DuPage, Senior Home Sharing, Prairie State Legal Services, Hair on Wheels, Habitat for Humanity, several local libraries and police departments.
For more information, call (630) 407-6500.
Reports submitted by Evan Shields, Public Information Officer, DuPage County Board, June 10, 2024.