Commonwealth Conversations: Health and Human Services

Helping Massachusetts refugees ‘RISE’ toward independence

By Emel Hadzipasic, director of development and planning for the Office of Refugees and Immigrants (ORI) 

Recently, the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants (ORI) received a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide enhanced employment services to newly arrived refugees that have multiple barriers to employment and self-sufficiency.  This new ORI program, Refugee Independence through Service Enhancement or RISE, will target four refugee sub-groups, including: single refugee mothers; refugee women with low/no literacy; refugees with medical conditions; and refugees with social and psychological issues. Since refugees in these target populations constitute a substantial portion of the approximately 2,500 new refugee arrivals to Massachusetts, we expect the grant to yield overall higher employment among the state’s newly arrived refugees. RISE clients will likely be represented by all of Massachusetts’ refugee populations that come from approximately 60 different countries, although Iraqi, Bhutanese, Burmese, and Somali refugees are the largest groups represented during the past few years.      

Employment service providers for refugees participating in RISE are in the Commonwealth’s main refugee resettlement areas: Greater Boston, the North Shore, Merrimack Valley; and Central and Western Massachusetts. RISE Resource Coordinators within each of the service agencies receiving funding as part of this grant will be instrumental to ensuring that each RISE client receives customized supports to ensure successful job placements. One of the unique features of RISE is the role volunteers play to provide direct services. ORI and each of the service agencies will work closely with the statewide RISE Volunteer Coordinator, charged with recruiting and training volunteers from universities throughout Massachusetts as well as other sources (e.g. churches and professional organizations). Volunteers will be matched with RISE clients to ensure that each RISE client receives assistance with tutoring, counseling, life-skills orientation, and other forms of personal guidance that will help clients address the difficult challenges they face on the road to employment and financial independence in the U.S. 

The RISE service model holds enormous promise for creating successful employment outcomes for targeted refugees through a cost-efficient approach that utilizes volunteers.  ORI looks forward to implementing RISE services during the two-year project term, which runs through FY12 and FY13. We are excited about the opportunity to fortify services for the most vulnerable of the state’s refugee populations, and to leverage more successful outcomes through the RISE program’s unique public-private partnership model.  RISE will count on the expertise of the Tufts University Refugee Assistance Program (TU-RAP), a volunteer program developed by graduate students from Tufts’ Fletcher School of International Affairs to help newly-arrived refugees with various needs. This private initiative has been gaining strength throughout the Greater Boston area during the last year. With support from RISE funding, we hope the TU-RAP model of assisting refugees will be replicated statewide.

 

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An introduction from new DTA Commissioner Dan Curley

I am honored and excited to join the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) team.   

Like many of our staff members, I have a long history in the health and human services fields.  Prior to joining DTA, I was the Executive Director for JRI Health, a division of Justice Resource Institute (JRI) Health, an organization that pursues social justice through providing underserved youth, adults and families with opportunities to develop critical skills for living independently.  

Before joining JRI in 2005, I was the Executive Director of Cambridge Cares about AIDS.  During my tenure there, I instituted model programs for homeless youth and adults that provided case management, behavioral health and health services working consistently with DTA staff to stabilize income, provide food and nutrition services, and to help them build skills for their future. During this time I also served as chair of the Cambridge City Public Health Board, a body that helped shape the priorities of the public health services in the city.  By serving in these multiple roles to define helping systems that were fragmented and difficult to navigate, the need to centralize community resources was clear.  In association with other leaders in these fields, HousingWorks, Inc. was established to meet that need and I joined this team as President.  Throughout my career I have worked in collaboration with others. No one, no agency does this work alone.  I have found in DTA and in the Secretariat like-minded spirits, and I am so pleased to be here.

In my role as Commissioner, I hope to bring a unique perspective from both collaborative, client-centered work within the United States and in developing countries.  I’ve had the gift of working in and traveling through different parts of the world, seeing how communities with few financial resources come together to address individual and community needs.  Women collaboratives, with support, have created powerful and sustainable income-generating and service models that build from cultural strengths emanating from a sense of belonging, mutual responsibility and sharing.  Throughout DTA we will be using these lessons to address the “transitional” and sustainable building from the strengths of the individuals, families and communities we serve.

I also hope to build capacity at DTA that will update the agency’s technology, continue to streamline our work and allow DTA case managers greater ability to work directly with individuals, families, and communities. Organizations that provide benefits should not become banks for low-income residents, but instead should focus on serving people in the community, at home, as strategic partners, linking to services, providing resources and helping to move forward toward more self-sufficiency. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve witnessed firsthand that the Department is comprised of smart, caring, and dependable staff members who listen, provide options, and gather resources to provide meaningful interventions for people in need.  I am so impressed by the way DTA staff rushed to the aid of residents in Central and Western Massachusetts impacted by the June tornadoes, Hurricane Irene, and the October snowstorm.  In offices and tents, staff provided access to critical resources for thousands of individuals and families.  These heroic efforts – in the wake of rising caseloads and limited resources – are the essence of DTA.      

In the coming weeks and months, I will travel around the Commonwealth to meet with staff, Advisory Boards, legislative and municipal leaders, and community partners to begin the conversation of how we can all work together to build capacity and to respond to urgent needs with optimism and hope.  I look forward to meeting you.  Please feel free to contact my office at any time by calling 617-348-8400. 

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Six years of creating opportunities to purchase assistive technology

By MRC Commissioner Charles Carr

 

In December the Massachusetts Assistive Technology Loan Program commemorated six years of successfully securing more than $8.6 million in low-interest loans to state residents with disabilities and their families so they can buy equipment and services that help them live, learn, work and play more independently. 

 

The program has made a vast difference in the lives of people like Roger.^* Roger was born into adversity. His mother had advanced ovarian cancer while she was pregnant, a condition neither were expected to survive. Roger was born two months premature in 1951, a time when ‘preemies’ were promptly incubated with high concentrations of oxygen. Today, it is well known that this treatment causes permanent blindness in newborns.

 

Growing up blind in the 50s and 60s, Roger defied the era's expectations, earning a master’s degree in human services and nurturing an abiding passion for audio editing. (His parents owned a movie theater while he was growing up, which Roger says sparked this interest). Roger’s work history is long and varied, from his early work in the movie house, to positions in the social services arena, to owning and operating his own sound studio. It's a history with numerous ups and downs, from taking highly-paid positions in high-tech to experiencing hard times that included losing his business, overcoming an aggressive cancer, and more recently, experiencing sudden and permanent hearing loss.

 

It was this last challenge that brought Roger to the Massachusetts Assistive Technology Loan Program. Initially, Roger says, he didn’t want to deal with the hearing impairment, but feelings of profound isolation lead him to an audiologist, who helped him get hearing aids covered by MassHealth. These helped him get around, and the cheaper hearing aids meant he could listen to the radio, but his passion for sound engineering remained out of reach.

 

Roger’s colleague – and a flyer that advertised free high-tech hearing screenings – transformed his outlook. Roger’s colleague was interested in setting up a sound studio, and in employing Roger full-time at the studio. He urged Roger to go to a screening.

 

It was at the hearing screening that Roger learned about digital hearing aids, which use an advanced technology to enable users to hear frequencies, some which Roger hadn't heard in years.   

 

The problem was affording it.

 

Roger’s requests for funding were denied by many agencies and the private charities he approached required matching funds. Roger finally found his way to the AT Loan Program, which is operated through the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission (MRC), Easter Seals and Sovereign Bank. Although he was turned down initially for the loan, as Roger recalls, "Easter Seals didn't give up on me. Leo (program coordinator at Easter Seals) encouraged me to appeal and he even had ideas about the kind of additional information I should gather that would help." 

 

Today, Roger and his colleague run a fully operational sound studio. They've produced their first album and are beginning to generate revenue. Roger makes regular loan payments for his high-tech hearing aids. The payments, he admits, are tight, as he relies on Social Security Disability Income (SSDI), but for now, Roger stresses, "Winners never quit and quitters never win. The people at Easter Seals really treated me like a human being and I'm not going to let them down, not after the way they went to bat for me.”

 

MRC’s Assistive Technology Loan Program has proven to be another effective tool for people with disabilities and their families to purchase life-changing assistive technology that is often prohibitively expensive. This technology often makes a critical difference fostering independence, productivity, and a higher quality of life for individuals with disabilities. To learn more about the program I urge you to visit www.massatloan.org.

 

*Client name changed for this post.

 

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Through collaboration with Department of Public Health, MassHealth members quit smoking while saving the Commonwealth $3 for every $1 spent

By Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. JudyAnn Bigby 

Some of you may have heard the great news last week from George Washington University, which released a study showing that that for every dollar MassHealth spends helping its members quit smoking, it saves the Commonwealth $3.12 in expenses for hospitalizations due to acute cardiovascular conditions. This remarkable return on investment is a victory the Commonwealth at large and reflects the positive impact of Massachusetts health care reform. It also demonstrates that investing in prevention reaps cost savings much sooner than anticipated.

The GW study was based on analyses of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and other previously published health studies.  It estimated cost savings for cardiovascular-related hospitalizations and did not include other costly longer-term illnesses caused by tobacco, such as cancer. A decline in cardiovascular hospitalizations and the associated cost savings were evident just a little over a year after smokers’ use of the benefit.

Clearly, investing in prevention strategies is essential to health care cost containment as we move forward with health care reform in Massachusetts.

MassHealth and the Department of Public Health (DPH) Tobacco Cessation & Prevention Program worked together to design a barrier-free benefit that includes all FDA-approved medications to quit smoking and behavioral counseling.  MassHealth has made this benefit available to its members since July 2006 as part of health care reform.

In making the announcement about this study, Governor Deval Patrick said, “While we have always known that helping people quit smoking is an investment in their health, this study shows that our efforts are also a sound financial investment for the Commonwealth, This represents another positive outcome of health care reform in Massachusetts.”

A major component of the success of this benefit is how MassHealth and DPH promoted it: through radio and transit ads and targeted outreach to MassHealth members and health care professionals. Massachusetts already had smoke-free workplaces, had a relatively high cigarette tax at the time the benefit was introduced, and has cultivated a non-smoking social norm, all of which have contributed to smokers wanting to quit.

The study’s findings are based on an independent assessment conducted by researchers from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, led by Professor Leighton Ku, and funded by Partnership for Prevention, a nonprofit organization that supports evidence-based public health prevention efforts.   The study was published in the peer-reviewed online journal PLoS One, at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029665.

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New program will help fortify state’s 21% drop in homelessness among veterans

By Department of Veterans’ Affairs Secretary Coleman Nee 

Yesterday, the New England Center for Homelessness and the Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS) unveiled the Statewide Housing Advocacy for Reintegration and Prevention (SHARP) initiative, a new federally-funded pilot program that will serve chronically homeless veterans in the Boston Metro area.

The initiative comes on the heels of a new report released by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness which shows the extraordinary impact of programs available through DVS. In one year alone, the rate of homelessness among veterans in Massachusetts has dropped by 21 percent, nearly twice the rate of reduction nationally.

SHARP is funded by a $323,000 federal grant and will provide greater resources to address a crucial need: the successful integration of veterans back into the community. Participants in the program receive federal housing vouchers and access to mental health services, as well as special housing that provides on-call care. The participants also join a network of fellow veterans who understand better than anyone the struggles they have faced.

At DVS, we hold firmly that no veteran who has served his/her country should be left to deal with the challenge of homelessness alone. As Henry Kettel of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Massachusetts, succinctly put it yesterday: "No one who has put his or her life on the line for all of us should come home to no home."

Yesterday’s event celebrated the significant progress that we’ve made helping homeless veterans throughout the Commonwealth, and we remain mindful that our goal is to eliminate veteran homelessness completely.

As Governor Patrick said in recognition of SHARP, “We are ending homelessness among veterans. Today, thanks to the leadership of Lieutenant Governor Murray, our Department of Veterans’ Services and our federal partners, we are seeing significant progress. But we must keep going to ensure that the men and women who have served our country in uniform have access to all the benefits their service has earned them.”

 

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Making resolutions you can really keep

By Executive Office of Elder Affairs Secretary Ann Hartstein

 

It’s the start of the New Year, and many of us are being inundated by an avalanche of New Year’s resolutions. We are warned to start exercising regularly; address weight concerns; stop smoking; give up carbohydrates; give up sugar; give up fried food.  It’s hard not to equate resolutions with depriving yourself of many of life’s pleasures.  At the same time, we know that taking charge of one’s life and habits will give us a major dividend: better health and longer life. 

 

There is another way to greet the beginning of the New Year. Perhaps we could think about empowering ourselves to make good choices that will make us feel and look a lot better.  In other words, New Year’s resolutions should be a gift to ourselves – and to our families for whom we are setting a healthy example and who will have the pleasure of having us with them for many more years.

 

A recent article in the Boston Globe cited a Stanford University study that revealed making resolutions has a negative impact because 80% of them are doomed to fail according to B.J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University.  And, Susan Lehmann, a John Hopkins University School of Medicine psychiatrist recommends working on focusing on specific issues rather than on everything (Washington Post, 1/2/12)  Both suggest that developing healthier habits rather than setting oneself unrealistic goals will yield better results.

 

Two years ago, Governor Patrick and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs (EOEA) launched the Aging Agenda, based in part on the premise that developing lifelong healthy habits generally yields a longer, healthier life.  But these habits – regular exercise, sensible nutrition, regular bedtimes, social activities, lifelong learning – are always there for you.

 

Most people prefer company as they embark on a life-changing activity.  First, we need the support of people taking the same journey. Second, it’s more fun to have company.  I’m not going to say “misery loves company” because I am not talking about inflicting misery.  Rather, I’m suggesting that we all have the opportunity to make some easy choices.  For example, check out your local Council on Aging, available on our website or by calling us at 1-800-AGE-INFO (1-800-243-4636), and ask about the range of exercise, diet/nutrition counseling (starving yourself for a week or two isn’t going to give you the long-term benefits of  reasonable sustained food choices) and chronic disease self management programs they offer.  Many COAs also have programs such as walking clubs – a pleasant way to initiate an important change. You can even invite a friend or two to form your own walking club – in a local mall when the weather is bad. And most Councils on Aging have healthy meals available every weekday.

 

Begin by thinking of empowering and rewarding yourself.  Seize the opportunity to work with people who can give you tools you want to give yourself: A New Years gift of a better, longer and healthier life.

 

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