Grant Partners

Funding to purchase two defibrillators for Greater Worcester Housing Connection homeless shelters.

Funding to build a sensory room and expand the Sherill House Expressive Therapy program to meet the complex healthcare needs of residents and patients, especially those with Alzheimer’s or dementia.

This grant funded outreach to individuals who have experienced gaps in insurance coverage due to barriers identified through our policy and research work.  This outreach supported the inclusion of a qualitative component to a policy and research project, elevating the lived experience of members of our community in our work.

Boston Center for Independent Living (BCIL) advocates with and for people with disabilities. BCIL will respond to developing situations related to the pandemic, which could include seeking timely access to booster vaccines and expanding homebound vaccinations. It will also work on prior authorization changes and new programs for expedited wheelchair repairs.  Additionally, BCIL will develop a consumer advisory group with MassHealth to monitor medical transportation providers.

In collaboration with Health Law Advocates, the Rian Immigrant Center will launch a Medical-Legal Partnership for Immigrants (MLPI) with community health centers (CHCs) in order to increase the number of immigrants that can access urgently needed legal assistance to protect their interwoven health care and immigration rights. Rian and HLA will partner with medical providers (hospitals and CHCs) to identify and refer patients who need legal assistance from HLA and/or Rian to address health care access and/or immigration needs.

Bay Cove Human Services Cape Cod Emergency Services Program (CCESP) will expand behavioral health urgent care services--encompassing mental health conditions, substance use disorders (SUD), and co-occurring disorders--to difficult to reach and isolated areas of Cape Cod. The program will increase outreach efforts to support individuals with urgent crises before they become emergencies, including regular ride alongs with police departments to proactively identify emerging crises at an earlier stage and to encourage more police departments to call the ESP in at the first sign of constituent in distress. 

Funding to build a robust, comprehensive housing tracker to shorten the wait time for housing vouchers for people experiencing homelessness.

Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center (EMK) operates a well-established multi-lingual, multi-cultural team that provides health insurance outreach and enrollment assistance for patients and clients. It serves as a primary point of contact in the health care community for refugees and the immigrant population, ensuring that these populations have access to coverage, can navigate the health care system, and can access care when they need it. EMK also identifies other benefits for which patients and clients may qualify--like SNAP or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) --and conduct warm referrals to internal supports. During the grant year, it will maintain a robust in-person outreach calendar, as pandemic restrictions allow, and virtually engage new community members, increasing awareness of EMK's health insurance enrollment services.

Resilient Sisterhood Project will assist the BCBSMA Foundation staff in conducting a focus group to understand the needs, concerns, and challenges facing organizations of color and organizations working in communities of color.  The focus group will also help the Foundation identify potential solutions to change the systems, policies, and structures that perpetuate racial inequities in health in Massachusetts.

Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires (VIM) will articulate, evaluate, and promote its comprehensive healthcare approach to serve as a model in increasing access to quality care and eliminating structural racism and racial inequity in health for economically, socially, ethnically, and racially marginalized residents of the Commonwealth.  VIM believes that many elements of its care model help increase access and eliminate racism, and the Special Initiative grant will help the organization test this assumption.

Funding to conduct focus groups to better understand vaccine acceptance and non-acceptance in the African communities of Worcester.

This grant was made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Welcome Project builds the collective power of immigrants to participate in and shape community decisions through programming for youth and adults that develops leadership skills, builds civic engagement, and strengthens immigrant voices.  It will work to develop partnerships with other immigrant and health organizations to advance efforts for equitable working conditions for immigrant workers and to ensure their health and safety to improve community health. 

Funding to hire a consultant to provide tools and expertise to expand federal housing eligibility counseling capabilities and maximize operations. This enhancement will increase its capacity to meet emergency housing and foreclosure needs for Latinx people with economic hardships that have been intensified by the pandemic.

This grant was made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery (MOAR) educates the public about the value of addiction recovery. The organization’s central concerns are to reduce: the social stigma of addiction; the shortage of timely treatment to promote recovery and reduce overdose risk; the lack of long-term treatment; and the disproportionate effects of addiction on populations such as veterans, pregnant women, non-English speakers, communities of color, and recently incarcerated people. MOAR will advocate for low threshold (non-abstinence) housing and for improved substance use disorder (SUD) treatment access via deaf-friendly mobile and outpatient services. MOAR will also convene information and strategy meetings with Black, Indigenous, and people of color populations to inform advocacy and policy priorities and educate policymakers about fidelity to peer principles, which is integral to the revised recovery coach licensure proposal. 

Brockton Neighborhood Health Center (BNHC) works to expand its reach to assist patients and members of the community with insurance outreach and enrollment supports. It partners with local organizations and area faith-based organizations to expand its reach to assist patients and members of the community. BNHC provides education on health insurance enrollment for immigrants, refugees, and people of color in places they gather, and reassures patients from immigrant populations who consider dropping coverage or avoiding medical care due fear of immigration, or confusion over re-enrollment changes post-COVID. BNHC will work to notify patients and clients that are due for renewal, even before policies and deadlines are re-instituted after the state of pandemic emergency is lifted, to ensure continuous coverage. During the grant year, it will also provide education, eligibility information, and application assistance for SNAP through the enrollment process or through referrals to Community Health Workers as health insurance enrollment volume increases.