Grant Partners

Advocates will purchase Zoom accounts, computer monitors, laptops, and printers for six recently hired bilingual clinicians to expand access to behavioral health care for low-income Latino individuals and families.  Funding will also provide equipment to two medical assistants to improve their efficiency when scheduling appointments and updating client charts.

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

Volunteers In Medicine Berkshires 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.

Lowell Community Health Center will provide multi-cultural communication and outreach efforts with a focus on immigrant and communities of color and expand its capacity for medical interpretation to ensure that patients are referred to trusted partners to address identified health-related social needs.

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

Trinity Boston Connects will provide clinical services for youth workers who experience cost barriers to accessing therapy and are experiencing a decline in mental health care access due to significant changes in their routine, family income, or from being unemployed due to the pandemic.

This grant was made in response to COVID-19 pandemic

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.

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.

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.

Stanley Street Treatment & Resources, Inc will assist other providers with establishing a model similar to SSTAR’s The Open Access Center by holding a one-day workshop on-site in Fall River, publishing and disseminating a report/toolkit for providers who serve people with substance use and co-occurring conditions.

The Greater Boston Food Bank will partner with Tufts Medical Center and the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center to evaluate the impact of a monthly mobile produce market on diet-related chronic diseases and health care utilization among registered GLFHC patients. The study aims to determine the effect of the mobile market attendance on such utilization measures as ED visits, hospitalizations and missed doctors’ visits.