Tufts Medical Center announced on December 16th that it has awarded more than $1.2 million in grants to 20 local nonprofit organizations to address unmet needs highlighted in their 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment. Six of those organizations will form cross-sector collaborations to reach more people and amplify impact and results.
The funding focuses on three core areas to improve the physical, socio-emotional and financial health of Boston residents: providing culturally competent behavioral health and substance abuse services; encouraging financial security and mobility by providing education and workforce development training, creating employment opportunities and apprenticeships, and offering financial coaching and counseling; and removing access to care barriers that community residents experience inside and outside the health care system and along the full continuum of care.
“Tufts Medical Center is committed to improving the health and wellness of the broader Boston community,” said Sherry Dong, Senior Director for Community Benefit and Health Equity at Tufts Medical Center. “Our goal is to partner with local organizations and meaningfully impact the social determinants of health, so every person in our community, regardless of their socioeconomic circumstances, has the ability to achieve optimal health.”
Starting next month, the grantees will focus on improving health outcomes in four priority neighborhoods, Chinatown, Dorchester, South Boston, and the South End. The recipients of this year’s grant award range in size and scope. One of the grant recipients, South Boston Neighborhood House, will partner with Fourth Presbyterian Church and South Boston Association of Nonprofits, to provide mental health and substance abuse support to children and families through educational initiatives for children of addicted parents and healing groups for individuals affected by trauma.
“With this funding, we have an opportunity to positively impact generational trauma, break cycles of enablement and co-dependency and foster greater social emotional health and opportunities for our families, and especially for our young people,” said Kathy Lafferty, Executive Director of South Boston Neighborhood House.
The Asian American Civic Association (AACA) plans to use funding to assist low-income families applying for benefits, as well as provide counseling on retirement, health care, housing, and translation and interpretation services. “The Multi-Service Center is a necessary and important part of AACA’s mission to serve low-income people and immigrants in our community and to help them achieve economic self-sufficiency,” said Mary Chin, Chief Executive Officer of AACA. “We could not do this work without the support of Tufts Medical Center and the funding for the Multi-Service Center.”
Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC) plans to use funding to promote the emotional wellbeing of expectant parents and families with infants. They will offer wellness groups for new mothers to increase social connections and reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. “By supporting this program for new families, this funding provides critical culturally and linguistically accessible behavioral and mental health support services to the Chinse speaking immigrant population throughout Greater Boston,” said Ben Hires, Chief Executive Officer of BCNC.
St. Mary’s Center for Women and Children plans to use funding to provide behavioral health services to women and children experiencing homelessness. “By investing in trauma-informed behavioral health services embedded in St. Mary’s Center’s residential programs, Tufts Medical Center and St. Mary’s Center are working in partnership to combat racial disparities within the mental health system, break down barriers to access behavioral health services and improve the long-term stability of families experiencing homelessness,” said Nora Lehan, Chief Development Officer of St. Mary’s Center for Women and Children.
The Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester will use funding to provide coaching and mentoring to low-income families in order to help them reach their personal and financial goals. They will expand programming of their LIFT Program (Lifting Individuals and Families Together). “Our families face incredible challenges every day and we all know that poverty just makes everything harder,” said Mary Kinsella, Senior Vice President for Education and Programming at Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester. “LIFT works with families to improve their circumstances, moving them out of poverty and setting them up for lifelong success. When families in our communities thrive, it creates a ripple effect, setting up the next generation of children to reach their full potential.”
Tufts Medical Center itself is a world-renowned 415-bed academic medical center in Boston that cares for the sickest patients in the region, includes a level one trauma center and one of the largest heart transplant centers in New England, and also serves as the principal teaching hospital for Tufts University School of Medicine. It continues to serve and support the community through funding crucially important local organizations.
