AG HEALEY AWARDS $1.5 MILLION IN GRANTS TO PROMOTE RACIAL EQUITY IN TREATMENT OF OPIOID USE DISORDER
Grants Provided to 16 Organizations for Accessible Opioid Use
Recovery Programs and Behavioral Health Services for Communities of Color
The grant program—Promoting Cultural Humility
in Opioid Use Disorder Treatment—supports treatment and recovery programs
committed to standards that serve Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
(BIPOC) in Massachusetts. AG Healey led a virtual roundtable today to announce
the grant recipients and discuss with grantees how they plan to use the funds
to address the disparities that exist.
“The opioid epidemic is far from over, and the COVID-19 crisis has
only exacerbated barriers to care that have systemically and disproportionately
harmed communities of color for far too long,” said AG Healey. “We
have prioritized equity in our grant programs and awarded these funds to
organizations that are committed to providing accessible recovery and treatment
services to diverse patients across our state.”
Systemic issues, including health care provider biases, limited public health
research, and inadequate news coverage have mischaracterized the opioid
epidemic as chiefly impacting white suburban and rural communities. However,
communities of color are increasingly affected by opioid use disorder.
According to data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health,
opioid-related overdose deaths increased for Hispanic and Black non-Hispanic
communities between 2018 and 2019.
Treatment inequities and devastatingly high mortality rates among
communities of color require recovery services that are diverse and not “one
size fits all.” A recent report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration reveals that Black and
Latinx people have substantially lower access to behavioral health and substance
use treatment services and too often experience less culturally responsive
care.
The grants were awarded to treatment programs that practice
cultural humility by centering patients’ unique needs and experiences and
demonstrate an understanding of providers’ biases and the barriers to care for
diverse patients.
Grant funds were awarded to the following organizations:
·
MA Organization for Addiction
Recovery (Statewide): This
statewide addiction advocacy organization will use the funding to increase
access of BIPOC communities to recovery coaching with a focus on services for
pregnant or parenting women, veterans, and recently incarcerated individuals
who are actively engaged in treatment.
“Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery is pleased to
receive this grant from Attorney General Maura Healey to improve outreach to
communities of color affected by addiction, support people in recovery, and
educate the public about the value of recovery,” said Maryanne
Frangules, Executive Director of Massachusetts Organization for Addiction
Recovery (MOAR).
·
Home Base Program (Statewide): The grant funding will help develop and implement
training programs for veteran outreach coordinators to better assist BIPOC
veterans who seek OUD treatment, including medication-assisted treatment and
therapy.
“These funds will allow Home Base to develop a
training curricula for frontline
staff to support patient-centered care of BIPOC veterans in
need of OUD treatment,” said Dr. Louis Chow, Senior Director
for Training and Network Development at
the Home Base Program. “The curricula will be developed to
foster three core elements of cultural humility – principles of mutual learning
and self-reflection, recognition of power imbalances, and recognition of
implicit biases – with the goal of delivering culturally sensitive, equitable,
and effective clinical care for those we serve.”
·
Boston Health Care for the
Homeless Program (Greater Boston): BHCHP will use
the grant award to fund a recovery support advocate with lived experience
in the communities the program serves. The program will provide recovery
support and harm reduction services to Black and Latinx populations
experiencing homelessness in Greater Boston.
·
Victory Programs (Suffolk, Essex,
and Norfolk Counties): Funding will be used to help lower barriers to OUD
treatment for populations experiencing homelessness or housing instability,
specifically through recruitment/retention initiatives for bilingual staff,
evidence-based trainings in cultural humility and racial equity, and
programmatic evaluation based on community and client input.
“Victory Programs is, yet
again, encouraged by the Attorney General’s Office, under AG Healey’s
leadership, multi-disciplinary approach to combating the opioid epidemic,” Sarah Porter, Executive
Director, Victory Programs. “This grant allows Victory
Programs to focus on cultural humility training, which includes the
identification and elimination of specific barriers BIPOC face for successful
treatment, and on our recruitment and retention of staff of color.”
·
Boston Medical Center (Greater
Boston): The grant funds will bolster BMC’s
program that serves 125 to 150 mother-baby pairs each year and will
specifically help to further incorporate trauma-informed services, Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) standards, and culturally sensitive
practices in treatment for mothers with OUD. It will also be used to help
provide critical support to infants born with neonatal withdrawal syndrome and
assist new mothers with the challenges of caring for newborns who are
experiencing withdrawals.
·
Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston): MGH’s Substance
Use Disorder Bridge Clinic will use grant funds to tailor peer support to women
of color with OUD who are also impacted by commercial sex exploitation and are
more likely to require services beyond the average treatment time. The Bridge
Clinic will also facilitate a peer referral pathway for this client group from
the Suffolk County House of Correction.
“Women of color are disproportionately affected by the
intersection of opioid use disorder (OUD) and commercial sexual exploitation
(CSE), but experiences of trauma, racism, and stigma related to addiction and the
sex trade create deep distrust of healthcare,” said Abigail Judge, PhD,
of the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, who
leads a project to improve services for women jointly
affected by substance use and commercial sexual exploitation. “This grant will allow our
team at Mass General Hospital’s Bridge Clinic to increase access to OUD/CSE
care for women of color through an expansion of specialized peer support, an
outreach-based referral pathway and evaluation of this model
through conversation with survivors and other community stakeholders.”
·
City of Somerville: Somerville
will partner with a local clinic to provide cultural humility training for two
full-time bilingual recovery navigators who speak Spanish, Portuguese, and/or
Haitian Creole. The new recovery navigators will be tasked with increasing
outreach and support to underserved populations, including immigrant
populations.
·
Lynn Community Health Center: The funds
will be used to increase bilingual staff capacity and hire staff members more
reflective of impacted communities for the “Lynn Moving Upstream Project.” This
project is a prevention and recovery program that assists children and
adolescents in the Lynn Public Schools system who are at high risk for OUD.
·
Jewish Family & Children’s Service (Essex,
Middlesex, and Suffolk Counties): The organization will use
funds to increase its capacity to serve Latinx parents with OUD who have
children under five years old through its Center for Early Relationship
Support. The program will prioritize outreach to Latinx communities, provide
bilingual services, offer a Spanish-based curriculum, and provide staff with
CLAS training.
·
Charles River Community Health Center
(Allston-Brighton, Waltham, Framingham/MetroWest): CRCHC will
utilize grant funding to provide increased access to BIPOC patients with a
history of OUD by implementing CLAS on an organizational level, training staff,
and supporting an interdisciplinary team that works with BIPOC OUD patients.
·
Steppingstone Incorporated (New Bedford and
Surrounding Communities): The organization,
which provides outpatient OUD treatment, will use grant funds to increase
Spanish-speaking staff, including a prescriber and licensed clinician, as well
as provide cultural humility training for staff.
“We are so excited to partner with the Massachusetts Office of
Attorney General and reach this underserved population in the greater New
Bedford area,” said Laura Washington, Director of Steppingstone’s
Cultural Humility Project and Project SOAR. “We are privileged to have the
opportunity to address disparities in our community through this grant and
assist the Hispanic community and other underserved populations of color in our
area on their path to recovery.”
·
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (Primarily Barnstable
and Plymouth Counties): The grant will fund a full-time Peer Recovery
Specialist, who will provide sober living assistance to tribal members and
tailor care to the individualized needs of community members. Services will be
grounded in Wampanoag cultural teachings and will incorporate language from the
once dormant Wôpanâak language.
“The Mashpee Wampanoag are indigenous people in this Land with a
tenure on the Land spanning 12,000 years of history; yet we are no less
vulnerable to the ravages of addiction; in fact we are four times more likely
to become addicted and die of overdose due to addiction,” said Jessie
Little Doe Baird, Vice Chairwoman, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. “Because our
contact history with colonialism includes land and resource deprivation,
poverty and ongoing and persistent problems with racism, self-medication and
addiction have been able to gain a foothold within our tribal nation.
Wampanoag need the Land, ceremony, resources, and each other to live in a
healthy way. When these things are disrupted, cultural injury occurs.
These wounds need the culture itself to help in healing. Resources and
partnerships are key to developing and delivering culturally appropriate and
culturally competent services. We look forward to engaging with one another and
our partners in this continued work on the good road to healing.”
·
River to Recovery (Fall River and Surrounding
Communities): Funds will allow for significant outreach to Black and
Latinx populations in Fall River while recruiting and training a new recovery
coach from the communities served.
·
Opening the Word Peer Recovery Center
(Webster, Dudley, Oxford, Douglas and Southbridge): Grant funds
will be utilized to hire group recovery facilitators, Spanish-speaking staff
members, and recovery coaches from the communities the center serves, as well
as to implement training on cultural humility and CLAS standards.
“This funding will allow us to do intentional outreach to men and
women of all races and ethnicities in recovery from substance use disorder
within our catchment area, and to create programs in which their specific stories
will be heard and their recovery needs met,” said The Rev. Janice Ford,
President, Board of Directors, Opening the Word Peer Recovery Center,
Inc. “We are honored and delighted to be a grant recipient.”
·
Gándara Mental Health Center (Springfield/Holyoke): The
funding will help the organization increase services to Latinx and Black
populations and incorporate cultural humility into Massachusetts Certified
Recovery Coach trainings. This organization aims to hire 20 bilingual Recovery
Coaches who will be able to aid an estimated 400 community members.
“We are thrilled to be a part of the Promoting Cultural Humility
in Opioid Use Disorder Treatment Grant which supports Gándara Center in
implementing a Recovery Coach Training initiative designed to increase access
for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) by reducing stigma and
diminishing the power imbalance through the increased use of peer recovery
coaching,” said Lois Nesci, CEO of the Gándara Center.
·
Franklin County Sheriff's Department/Opioid
Task Force (Franklin County/North Quabbin Region): The grant
funding will help expand access for BIPOC individuals impacted by OUD via
significant staff training, identification of barriers to access, appropriate
outreach, and support for patient-centered pathways for recovery.
“Reducing racial disparities within the public health and criminal
justice systems is crucial to improving health outcomes for Black, Indigenous
and people of color, especially those affected by opioid misuse,” said Northwestern
District Attorney David E. Sullivan and Co-Chair of the Opioid Task Force of
Franklin County and the North Quabbin Region. “Our participation in this
grant program will allow us to implement a robust cultural humility component
to our post-overdose follow-up efforts in our rural region.”
“This grant award will provide the Opioid Task Force with the
resources it needs to fulfill a vision that the late Chief Justice of the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Ralph D. Gants had for the Commonwealth,”
said Register John F. Merrigan and Co-Chair of the Opioid Task Force of
Franklin County and the North Quabbin Region. “He advocated tirelessly for
justice for all; this includes health equity. These funds will ensure that
everyone has access to life-saving opioid treatment and recovery services,
especially for people of color.”
“In Massachusetts, Black and Latinx populations are
overrepresented in the criminal justice system,” said Sheriff
Christopher J. Donelan and Co-Chair of the Opioid Task Force of Franklin
County and the North Quabbin Region. “Many also suffer from substance use
disorders. Our cultural humility initiative will help us use data and other
evidence-based strategies to address racial inequities in our quest to prevent
opioid-related overdoses.”
