Grant Partners

The Massachusetts COVID-19 Maternal Equity Coalition will conduct a strategic planning process that aims to create and sustain a multi-sectoral, interdisciplinary, community-driven group devoted to improving the health outcomes of Black birthing people. The resulting report will provide recommendations for opportunities and best practices on how stakeholders can collaborate to build bridges across the silos in maternal health.

Funding to update its seven-year-old strategic plan to better serve the complex medical and socioeconomic needs of its clients in a changing public health landscape.

Funding for iPads to ease outdoor patient registration at its mobile health unit and to provide hygiene items (including masks, sanitizer, and COVID education materials) to ensure safe access to care.

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

Funding for an online food delivery system and fulfillment center that will enhance capacity to meet increased need due to the pandemic. This effort will connect more people to healthy foods of their choosing through safe, socially distanced curbside pick-up or home delivery.

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

Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) is the largest coalition organization in New England advocating for the rights and integration of the over 1.2 million foreign-born residents of Massachusetts. MIRA will secure funding for services and outreach to immigrants, state housing assistance programs, and other crucial programs for immigrant health and wellbeing.   Additionally, it will seek to end deep racial disparities in the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in MA. MIRA provides the Vaccine Equity Now! Coalition with ongoing communications services, including the regular release of up-to-date developments in six languages for dissemination to the Commonwealth's immigrant communities and beyond.

The Community Action Committee of Cape Cod & Islands (CACCI) will assist individuals and families who are uninsured to apply, select, and enroll in Health Connector and MassHealth plans. CACCI provides individualized educational information so consumers may better understand notices, clarify next steps, and understand redetermination and renewal processes. During the grant year, it will coordinate with community organizations, including those on the Cape and Nantucket, to increase access to health insurance across the region. It also provides consumers with access to its SNAP Outreach Program staff.

Funding for an electric examination table for the health clinic, which serves women experiencing homelessness.

Legendary Legacies provides case management, mentoring and skills development, and re-entry services for young men of color, particularly fathers, previously incarcerated or gang-affiliated individuals, to help them to develop the necessary skills to succeed in life and become productive citizens. Legendary Legacies will enhance its organizational capacity for health care advocacy to give voice to the inequitable outcomes of the current healthcare system it sees every day to create real and lasting change. It will also identify and purchase a donor management platform to build capacity to communicate with a variety of stakeholders as it takes on this enhanced role in health advocacy.

Funding to train trauma-informed yoga instructors to become more specialized in serving specific populations including veterans who are incarcerated or in recovery and youth who are in detention or in recovery.

Massachusetts Association for Mental Health (MAMH) focuses on expanding access to effective treatment and services, reducing stigma and discrimination, and addressing behavioral health services disparities.  It is a critical partner in both the area of social determinants of health and health care reform as a convener, technical adviser, and coalition leader.  MAMH will continue to inform the implementation of the Executive Office of Health and Human Service's Roadmap for Behavioral Health Reform and the Strategic Design Work Group for MassHealth's 1115 waiver renewal. It will also advocate for the implementation of behavioral health parity laws; and educate and engage stakeholders around the need to expand access to timely, comprehensive, community-based, and culturally and linguistically responsive services.  In addition, MAMH will continue to engage communities of color in the content and user experience of Network of Care Massachusetts' Culturally Responsive Behavioral Health Information Hub and expand its partnership with the Urban League to tackle disparities. 

Neighborhood Birth Center (NBC) will lead a community-centered design for Boston’s first birth center through a series of charrettes to engage the community in envisioning a safe space for pregnancy and birth care. This feedback and input will lead to designing materials (renderings, videos, website) that will enable NBC to translate the vision onto the physical space. Through this initiative to develop and build a new model for birth centers that explicitly interrupts structural racism and heteropatriarchy, NBC will expand relationships with community members.

Community Healthlink will continue the integration of its substance use disorder program with its mental health services. The program will: implement its medication-assisted treatment (MAT) program for both long and short term use; provide case management and follow-up services with clients who come to Behavioral Health and Addiction Urgent Care for either mental health or substance use disorder treatment; and continue to strengthen its collaboration with local police departments and health and human services providers.

Funding for kits to connect individuals released from incarceration with the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute’s healing reentry programs. The kits will contain program information, COVID-19 protective equipment, food gift cards, and clothing vouchers.

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

The Dimock Center will continue to support its community by assisting with health insurance enrollment and renewals, especially focusing on people who may have never enrolled in coverage or who experienced gaps and lapses in coverage due to trauma, homelessness, and substance use disorder. During the grant year, it will create new health insurance literacy materials in languages other than English and will work to ensure that eligible clients and patients are referred to its resource specialists for enrollment support for SNAP.

La Colaborativa will expand the Chelsea Desea Sonar program to older teens who experience mental health triggers from the pandemic. Chelsea Desea Sonar (Chelsea Wants to Dream) is a mental health support program designed for newly arrived, unaccompanied, immigrant, and refugee children ages 9-13, teens, and their families and caregivers.  This project will address the cultural and societal barriers to mental health for youth of color and provide alternative mental wellness regarding the stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic.