Grant Partners

East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, in collaboration with the Chelsea Senior Center, will expand and sustain COVID food delivery services to include medications and pharmacy goods. Pairing medication and pharmacy goods with its food deliveries will benefit the individual health of the patients receiving necessary medications while also working to stop the community spread of COVID by allowing patients to stay at home.

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

Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts 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.

Samaritans, Inc will upgrade their video conference and webinar capacities to conduct virtual workshops for youth and their caregivers. Samaritans will focus these workshops on individuals in communities experiencing health inequities who are particularly vulnerable during these challenging times.

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

Roca, Inc. will transition its innovative approach to behavioral health for young adults so that interactive cognitive-behavioral theory (CBT) and educational training can be delivered virtually. It will also work to combine its skills in engagement, outreach, and CBT, with the more traditional skills of Community Health Workers and Therapeutic Mentors, to maximize the number of young people engaged and retained in appropriate levels of both non-clinical and clinical care. 

This grant was made in response to COVID-19 pandemic

Beth Israel Lahey Health Behavioral Services (BILH BS) will enhance current community-based alcohol use disorder (AUD) treatment by providing clients with a tool that rewards participation in recovery activities. The project will make use of the DynamiCare Health mobile application, a digital platform that helps people monitor and change their use of drugs, opioids, alcohol, and tobacco. This demonstration project relies on evidence-based Contingency Management (CM) techniques, an effective methodology for improving substance use disorder outcomes. While CM’s effectiveness has been repeatedly demonstrated, it is used by fewer than 10% of treatment programs.  Use of an automated version of CM, which does not require intensive staff effort, would have significant advantages in overcoming barriers to engagement.

The Family Van will test how an innovative approach used to increase access to mental health care internationally (Problem Management Plus) can be adapted domestically. This new pilot program, Healthy Roads, will increase access to mental health services in low-income communities, build the capacity of Community Health Workers (CHWs) to address mental health issues and introduce a new model of care to The Family Van’s provision of services.

Community Catalyst will create a quality measurement train-the-trainer curriculum and glossary for consumer leaders and advocates across Massachusetts. The curriculum will be published online and publicized to advocates and community leaders as a tool to help develop a larger, more powerful consumer effort to improve the quality of substance use disorder services in Massachusetts. The glossary will be a self-teaching tool that explains key quality measurement processes and terms, building on input from advocates and quality measurement experts.

Powers Music will replicate the key elements of the Watch City Singers program, an innovative and successful cross-sector music program which addresses the harmful effects of isolation and loneliness on older adults through weekly rehearsals that combine progressive skill-building content with social engagement activities.  The program will focus on low-income, diverse communities with an emphasis on communities of color.

Accompany Doula Care will increase the number of doulas that come from communities of color to meet the linguistic, racial and cultural needs of families in Fall River, New Bedford, Brockton, Taunton, Lawrence/Lowell, Haverhill, and Worcester/Framingham.

Beth Israel Lahey Health will build the capacity of health center care teams to be spiritual care generalists in order to promote spiritual wellness in their patients, families and staff.  Spiritual care generalist providers attend to patients’ self-reported religious or spiritual needs as they pertain to their health and identifies those in need of the specialty care that chaplains can provide. Despite the evidence demonstrating the importance of integrating spirituality into medical care, there are too few chaplains to serve patients in all healthcare contexts. Consequently, in expanding access to culturally responsive care models providers must be equipped to provide basic, culturally appropriate “generalist” spiritual care to patients and their families.

Massachusetts Senior Action Council will hire a part-time health justice organizer to assist with Medicaid defense campaigns, deepen issue education and engagement in communities of color, prepare and empower seniors to advocate with policymakers, and amplify media coverage and public discourse about low-income senior health care needs and policy solutions.

Medical Legal Partnership Boston will develop and deliver a series of Learning Community webinars as well as a large-scale event for health care providers and human service organizations.

Doc Wayne Youth Services, Inc. will support clinicians in reconfiguring its existing curriculum, which was designed for adolescents, to create a junior version for their youngest age demographic, 5-8 year olds. 

Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative will strengthen its peer recovery coach and referral program with the Boston Police Department and expand weekly multi-agency collaborations that help identify the highest risk individuals in Boston communities. 

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) will increase the organization’s membership and visibility in communities of color across the Commonwealth, by undertaking a systematic and focused effort to recruit more diverse members and expand its constituency. NAMI Mass will engage targeted outreach to organizations, agencies, churches, and schools in Greater Boston and Framingham, and recruit program facilitators from these communities to deliver its program curriculum.