2022 Summer Newsletter
Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers
The Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers (MCDW) works to bring racial and social justice and dignity to all domestic workers in our state.
In this Newsletter
Leadership.
Interview with Jenny, Mother Leader.
Solidarity.
Control the Rent Massachusetts.
Licenses for All.
Education.
Stop Wage Theft.
Keep Your Benefits.
Resources.
Honors and Acknowledgements.
Lenny Zakim Fund.
Interview with Jenny, Domestic Worker and Mother Leader
Jenny is part of the Mother Leaders group, the Coalition's worker-led leadership body. She currently lives in Cambridge with her three children—two biological children and her nephew, who she now lovingly raises after her brother passed away—and works in house cleaning. Here, she shares her personal story of being a Garífuna domestic worker from Honduras and her thoughts on leadership and the fight for dignity for domestic workers. This interview has been translated from the original Spanish.
Question: Can you share with us what brought you here to the US?
Answer: I was fortunate to win a scholarship in my home country of Honduras. Although I had a very difficult childhood, I was always very good at school. In my culture as a Garifuna, our parents did not go to high school or to college. They fought hard so that we were able to reach a higher level of education. My mom always told me, “I couldn't go to college, but work hard, study and prepare so that you can.” With that mentality, when we go to college and get a good job, we help our parents. I worked so hard in school that I got a final grade of 85.
The scholarship that I mentioned - it's called the Cass Scholarship - is like an exchange program. Students come from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, and Haiti for two years to study in the US. I was picked to go to Nebraska for two years. I graduated from agribusiness administration. The agreement was that when I graduated, I would return to my country.
When I did return, I encountered so much discrimination as a Garifuna. I was taking my résumé to several places. I would go with a ladino, where I would take my résumé and the ladino would take his. When they saw the color of my skin, they would automatically tell me, “We are not hiring,” but they did take the resume from the other person who was not a Garífuna.
As a result of that, I met a person where, because of my relationship with that person, I began to receive threats. I told myself "No, I have to go to another place where my life is not in danger." That was when I made the decision to come to this country, running away to save my own life. My country has become one of the most violent countries. That is the reason why I am in Massachusetts today.
I thank God because this country has given me a lot. I have two beautiful children. When I was in my country, I was operated on. I had a surgery called "miomas" in Spanish; here, they are called fibroids. After the surgery, the doctor told me, "I'll give you 6 months, if you can't have children in 6 months I can't guarantee that you ever will.”
I came here, and I asked God to give me a son, because as a result of that surgery I was not going to be able to have a normal delivery. It had to be by cesarean section. I had my two children here. I thank God because I know that being born in this country gives my children more opportunities.
Question: Can you tell me about how you came to Massachusetts?
Answer:
I came to MA because of a cousin of mine. I was in Buffalo, NY, but the situation in Buffalo was very difficult for me because I was a single mother with two children. At that time, Jeremy was 3 years old, and Cristofer was 8 months old. So I asked my cousin about how I could come here to MA. She told me, “cousin, come. You who are going through all these bad situations, come here.”
When I arrived here, I had been with my cousin for a week when she told me, “cousin, unfortunately, I can no longer help you, but I know a place that can.” That was when I went to a shelter for single mothers. So they sent me to a shelter here in Cambridge where I stayed for two and a half years with my children.
The English language was giving me problems. While I was in the shelter, they told me about the CLC, which is the Community Learning Center, where they recommended that I take English classes. I went and took the exam, and they put me in level 3 because, of course, I could defend myself, I knew the basics, but keeping up a conversation was difficult for me. At the Community Learning Center classes, I was fighting, battling because it is not easy. Until I reached level 5. When I reached level 5, I graduated. Thank God, my English improved. And by that time, my children were already growing up. I also learned how to speak English with my children, but they speak very fast, so I had to tell my children, “Please slow down!”
Doing what I could, we were able to leave the shelter. I was able to get an apartment here in Cambridge with my children, with two bedrooms, thank God. Then I met a person who invited me to a MassCOSH meeting. She told me, "In the meetings, there is a lot of information." Since I hadn't found my way around much of MA yet, I said to myself, "More information is important, I'm going to go to that meeting." When I got to MassCOSH, I heard all of this important information about immigration, about what to do when there is wage theft, and all of that interested me very much.
Question: How did you get involved with the Domestic Workers Coalition? What is your story as a domestic worker?
Answer:
At the meetings at MassCOSH, they told me about the Domestic Workers Coalition. It interested me a lot because I started working as a domestic worker when I was 15 years old in Honduras. I worked in a house where I experienced first-hand what discrimination is. Everything that belonged to me was kept separate from the family I worked for. I worked for a ladino family in Honduras.
On Saturdays I had to cook because the family would get together with their children and grandchildren on Sundays. They had a granddaughter who asked me one week, "Are you going to be there on Sunday?" I told her, "Yes." That Sunday they all got together to eat. This granddaughter cut me a piece of the dessert that I myself had made on Saturday for Sunday and gave it to me. The woman I worked for came up to us and said, "No, no, no, don't give her dessert. She's not part of our family."
I felt so badly because of this mistreatment. But at that time I saw racism as something normal. Later I realized that it is not normal. I worked in that house for about two more years and then left my job. I went to another city where I had to work in a textile company that we call maquiladoras where we made disposable overalls.
But I always liked cleaning, housework. Part of my Garifuna culture is that we are very industrious at home. My grandmother used to say, we are poor but industrious. The house has to be shining. We grow up with that.
Because of the obstacles I faced here in MA, I told myself, I am going to look for cleaning because I can talk to people. If I go to a person and ask if she needs a house cleaner, and she gives me the cleaning job, because of my good work she can recommend me to another person. That way you can get more clients. When you do your job with love, then that gets you a good recommendation for another job.
I saw that this was the only job where they do not demand that you are documented. I started to clean, and now with the information from the Coalition, I realize that I have rights and responsibilities as a domestic worker. So I told myself, I'm going to get more involved in the Coalition.
Question: Why is being involved in the Coalition important to you?
Answer:
What I already know, I need to share it with all those women who do not know their rights and who are exploited at work, sexually and psychologically. My vision is that all these women know about their rights because they are exploited on a daily basis. There are some who are afraid because of their immigration status. I need to reach them because I need to tell them that even if they are not documented, they still have rights, and they can fight.
For example, there are many employers who bring workers over from our countries of origin under false pretenses, telling them, “I already have a job for you,” or, “You are going to do some cleaning.” When they arrive, the employers withhold their passport, or they retain any documents that the workers have. The employers manipulate them. And when the workers suddenly see that they are being manipulated and want to leave, the employers threaten that they will call immigration on them. That is when workers start to panic, when the fear begins, because the workers know that they have family in their country that are depending on them, that their family is in need of that help from them.
As a domestic worker, I need to tell these women that they do not have to be afraid. That even if employers withhold a worker’s passport, she can go and seek help. With help, she can go to the employer and make them return her documents and pay what they owe her. We are working in the Coalition so that our voices are heard.
Question: What is the vision of the work that the Coalition is doing?
Answer:
We know that housework is hard work. That's why we have a campaign to get paid $25 an hour. We know that when you arrive at a house to clean, you often are supposed to work for a certain amount of time.
Let's say if I go in at 9 in the morning, I already have an hour that I am supposed to leave, like 2 or 3 in the afternoon. But even if you have a set time, you often never leave at that time. Because you still see things that you want to continue doing in that house. That happens when you see that house as if it were your own home. You do your work with love, you do it well. Since housework is so difficult, we need it to be seen, to be valued, and we also need it to be compensated fairly. Domestic work is one of the jobs that shouldn't be exploited. We are carrying out this campaign to raise our voices because we need our work to be valued because it is a job that is not easy for anyone.
Question: You said that you are part of MassCOSH, and MassCOSH is also a member of the Coalition. And there are many groups that make up the Coalition. How would you describe why the work of MassCOSH and that of the other Coalition members is so important?
Answer:
I am someone who has been directly impacted by the work MassCOSH does because I took a friend who had experienced wage theft to MassCOSH. He was working in construction with other workers, and the employer owed them money. When he told me his story and what had happened with that employer, I told him, "Don't worry, I have a place to take you." So I took that friend to MassCOSH where we sat down with Milagros [MassCOSH Worker Center Director], and she did an intake of his case. And then the case was sent to the lawyers. Milagros called me this week and told me, "The lawyers want to talk to your friend; how do we get in touch with him?" So I immediately called my friend, and I told him, "I think the case is on the right track because the lawyers want to talk to you before Friday."
This is being achieved thanks to the work of MassCOSH. We know that they are working to fight wage theft to help people who are going through this societal problem. Because it is a societal problem. Many times employers do not pay you what they should. For those types of situations, thank God we have MassCOSH and we have the Coalition. Because when information about a situation of wage theft reaches the Coalition, the Coalition already knows what they have to do, that they have to call MassCOSH because MassCOSH is dedicated to fighting wage theft.
Question: I wanted to ask about your leadership within the Coalition. How do you see that your leadership has grown?
Answer:
When I started going to Coalition meetings, I was a little afraid to talk about my story and talk about the injustices that occur with women domestic workers. Meeting Myrna [current Director], meeting Magalis [former Director and Steering Committee member], and interacting with Mayra [former Recruitment Director], I felt strength. I felt strength because they were struggling with the same things I was. So I joined.
I told myself, three voices are better than one. I got stronger and began to investigate, ask questions, and also offer myself. If you never offer, people will think that you do not want to participate. When they asked me and said, Jenny, are you willing to talk about such and such? I said, yes, I am available, what do I have to say, how are we going to do it? I told myself, I have to start telling my story, to talk about what I have lived through, what has happened in my life, to move forward, raising our voices.
I was given the opportunity to talk about how we could reach out to other women, the strategies of how more women can find out about their rights.
I told them, one strategy is that we can distribute flyers in the street. We can put them up in different places, like at bus stops. We started by doing that. But then COVID came, so we all had to lock ourselves inside. But now that the lockdown is over, I think we can go out into the streets again to put up flyers about peoples’ rights.
Let's say that people sit down to wait for the bus at the station. Seventy percent of people when they see a flier posted on the wall of the bus station, they read it. Especially if it has a phone number on it. If the person seeing the flier is not the one who is experiencing an injustice in the workplace at that moment, they may have a cousin or a friend. Easily nowadays with the technology we have, they just have to take a picture with their phone and get the number and tell the person they know who is going through a certain situation, “you know what, I found a flier that is posted that talks about the rights of women workers. This is the number you can call and find out what to do.”
I think that this is also one of the ways that you can continue growing your leadership, spreading information to other women. There is also Facebook live, where you can make recordings. People are always on Facebook. That is also one of the places where we can work on our leadership.
Question: I really like that, that part of leadership is knowing how to tell your story so that it reaches other workers who see themselves reflected in your story. And another part of leadership is helping others and bringing them into the Coalition, reaching out to the community and being that bridge between the Coalition and all those women who are working perhaps without knowing that the Coalition exists. Now you are a very key part of the Mother Leaders group, which is the leadership body of the Coalition. What does that group do within the Coalition? Why is that group important?
Answer:
The four of us mothers who are in that group are so powerful together. For example, all of our organs; they are all part of the body. We have hands, we have ears, eyes. For example, let's talk about the liver. If the liver goes on strike, if it won't work, what would happen? We would die, right? So no one is self-sufficient. We all need ourselves and also we are all connected to each other, like the different parts of the body. So these mothers who are in the group have such a strong power because whatever idea I don’t come up with, someone else comes up with that idea. And what the second person can’t think of, the third comes up with. And we put all of this information into one. That helps us to be able to distribute information and coordinate at the same time.
For example, with the free food program, when I can't go one Saturday, someone else can go. One person can go to a march, I can go to the food program, someone else can go to the State House. As our ancestors say, two heads are better than one. Because what you are not thinking, the other already thought. Then it’s just a matter of compiling the information. You have to put it together and see what you have to remove, put in, add, but it's already all together.
Question: And that is important for the work of organizing because it cannot be done alone. It is work that can only happen between all of us.
Answer:
For the Coalition’s next general meeting, I already have an agenda ready, who is going to open the meeting, who is going to lead the icebreaker, etc. It's important that the other women we want to reach don't just see one person leading. If they see two, three, or four people, they are going to say, they really have a group, they have legitimacy and strength. Sometimes you only see one person with the same information always, but when you see other faces, then they say yes, that group is powerful. So, for example, in the meeting, I talk about the Bill of Rights and I welcome people to the meeting, and another person does the icebreaker, and another gives the announcements. There is coordination, there is a group that is working, that is moving. The women we want to reach are going to say, "They are organized!"
Control the Rent Massachusetts
Don’t Evict! Negotiate!
This spring, MCDW’s worker membership has worked in solidarity with Homes for All Massachusetts (a statewide formation of grassroots housing justice groups working to halt displacement, increase community control of land, and win housing justice) as part of the movement to end the statewide ban on rent control.
Twenty-seven years ago, rent control was banned in Massachusetts. This enabled unrestrained exploitation of working people, especially people of color, from the forces of landlordism and gentrification. We believe that safe shelter is a human right, and consider the extortion of funds from workers to access what they need to survive to be nothing short of a human rights violation.
According to research by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a person earning minimum wage as of 2022 ($14.25) would be nearly $800 short on rent for a one-bedroom fair market rent apartment, even if they spent their entire paycheck. In order to afford a one-bedroom with a full time job, Massachusetts renters would need to earn at least $29.41 hourly.
There were two relevant bills brought to the Joint Committee on Housing in January: “An Act Enabling Local Options for Tenant Protections” (H.1378 / S.886) and “An Act Relative to the Stabilization of Rents and Evictions in Towns and Cities Facing Distress in The Housing Market” (H.1440 / S.889), either of which would allow Massachusetts municipalities to decide whether to impose a limit on annual rent increases. In a virtual hearing on January 11, renters gave testimony in support of H.1378 / S.886 and H.1440 / S.889.
It is notable that this political battle is only the first step of many, and that on its own, these would not guarantee affordable housing for low income residents. The defense against evictions and gentrification is not only fought through legislation, but also through demonstration and direct action. Specifically, MCDW members protested in solidarity with City Life Vida Urbana (CLVU) and the Malden Tenants Association against eviction by Mystic Valley Regional Charter School.
Domestic workers, especially those who are Black, Latina, and Asian women, are disproportionately affected by this issue, as they are more likely to be denied fair wages and hours for their work. Pricing working people of color out of their homes is the very definition of gentrification, a systemic form of racial oppression that uproots families and destroys communities. Evictions during COVID are even more deadly than they are otherwise. The fight for affordable housing is a fight for people’s lives.
As of July 31, 2022, the bill is still pending. You can do your part by contacting your state representatives and senators and urging them to support “An Act Enabling Local Options for Tenant Protections” (H.1378 / S.886) and “An Act Relative to the Stabilization of Rents and Evictions in Towns and Cities Facing Distress in The Housing Market” (H.1440 / S.889).
Licenses for All
Licencias, sí! Promesas No!
This spring, the Brazilian Worker Center (BWC) were coordinators on the Licenses for All campaign. BWC was one of the founding organizations on the steering committee of Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers, and continues to be on our steering committee today. They are involved in labor and immigration struggles in the Greater Boston area. Their Immigrant Justice Project organizing includes assisting DACA applicants, connecting people with legal resources and sanctuary spaces, educating people about legislation, and aiding families in locating their loved ones held in ICE detention.
The Licenses for All campaign came to fruition after around fifteen years of organizing by immigrants rights organizations. Over 270 organizations from across Massachusetts came together as the Driving Families Forward Coalition, and demanding legislators pass legislation enabling undocumented residents to apply for drivers licenses. Groups of activists, including members of Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers, rallied at the State House for the approval of this law.
Cosecha, founded in 2015, played a significant role over the past three years in building a grassroots movement of direct action and mobilization with new community involvement and leadership to push the bill forward in tandem with lobbying. This type of grassroots mobilization has proven very effective to push the legislation further and has created a new wave of immigrant rights leadership and mobilization in the state.
The specific legislation in question is Bill H.3456/S.2289, entitled “An Act relative to work and family mobility during and subsequent to the COVID-19 emergency.” This will enable undocumented people, including those who are ineligible for a social security number to be eligible for a MA driver’s license if they meet all other qualifications and provide satisfactory proof of identity. It also states that the registrar of licenses, learner’s permits, MA state ID cards, or motor vehicle registration, cannot ask about the applicant’s citizenship or immigration status.
Importantly, this bill would prohibit said registrar from keeping, selling, disclosing, or permitting access to any documents or copies of documents from the application process used to prove identity, date of birth, residency, social security number or ineligibility for one after the license has been issued. The only exception is if said registrar is presented with a judicial warrant.
Part of the Licenses for All campaign brought in a virtual session between legislators and business and health care leaders to explain the ways in which this legislation would aid the local economy and public health. These arguments are true and persuasive to those in power, but even more important is the reminders by undocumented residents across the state that they are intrinsically deserving of rights, regardless of whether or not accessing these rights improves the lives of documented people.
The real reason to support this campaign is simple: freedom of movement is a human right. People should not be criminalized or prevented from travel due to their citizenship documentation status. Providing drivers licenses is an important and effective way to prevent deportations. This is one small part of a larger struggle for the human rights of migrant people.
This organizing was and continues to be extremely important. On February 16, Massachusetts House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 120 to 36. On May 5, 2022, the Massachusetts Senate voted 32-8 in favor of the bill. Governor Charlie Baker vetoed it on May 27, 2022, expressing the worry that undocumented immigrants would be able to use driver’s licenses to register to vote illegally. Since more than two-thirds of the Massachusetts Senate voted in favor of the bill, they were able to override the Governor’s veto. The law will go into effect on July 1, 2023.
Even in these few weeks since the “Licenses for All” legislation was approved, there is a growing movement to repeal it. Anti-immigrant, white supremacist groups are trying to collect 41,000 signatures from MA residents to prevent the legislation from going into effect and instead put it on the ballot for all MA voters.
You can do your part by sending a letter to your State Senator thanking them for supporting “An Act Relative to Work and Family Mobility” (S.2289) and signing up to help prevent anti-immigrant organizers from collecting more signatures: https://bit.ly/defend-signup.
Also, continue following the work of Cosecha and other organizations that are handling this issue.
Stop Wage Theft
An Act to Prevent Wage Theft, Promote Employer Accountability, and Enhance Public Enforcement
Wage theft is the practice of withholding earned wages or benefits from workers. Wage theft encompasses a number of practices including: not paying minimum wage, not paying overtime, requiring off-the-clock work, requiring workers to work during meal breaks or denying meal breaks, paying late or not paying at all, and taking illegal deductions from worker paychecks. The Coalition to Stop Wage Theft estimates* that $700 million in wages are stolen from Massachusetts workers every year, and less than one percent of those lost wages are recovered.
The Coalition to Stop Wage Theft is made up of nineteen organizations including members of the MCDW steering committee (Brazilian Women’s Group, Brazilian Worker Center, and MassCOSH) and MCDW partners (Greater Boston Legal Services). This coalition proposed An Act to Prevent Wage Theft, Promote Employer Accountability, and Enhance Public Enforcement (Bill H.1959/S.1179).
Presently, two prominent existing pieces of legislation address wage theft: the Massachusetts Wage Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under the Wage Act, employees who demonstrate in court that they have been victims of wage theft are entitled to triple their outstanding unpaid wages. However, the Wage Act does not protect the overtime wages of restaurant workers and certain other categories of employees. The FLSA, on the other hand, is inclusive of restaurant workers’ overtime pay, but it does not require employers to pay triple damages; it only requires payment of the balance owed.
In a recent case; Devaney v. Zucchini Gold, LLC; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that “the Massachusetts Wage Act’s ... remedies were preempted by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) where employees’ claims for unpaid overtime wages arose exclusively under federal law.” This decision deviates from the rulings of lower courts, which had interpreted the Wage Act to be the most relevant law to remedy the employees’ grievances.
If the pending Act to Prevent Wage Theft, Promote Employer Accountability, and Enhance Public Enforcement were to be passed, it would make several key changes to the existing context in employees’ favor. It would
Require employers to inform employees about important information in writing within ten days of employment, including rate of pay, regular pay day, employer’s contact information, and contact information for the employer’s workers’ compensation insurance carrier.
Reinstate employees’ ability to recoup three times their stolen wages.
Require the employer found guilty of wage theft to cover the employees’ costs of taking legal action and the associated attorney’s fees.
Give the attorney general the authority to issue a stop work order to employers engaging in wage theft, requiring all their business operations to stop, and not restart until the wage violation has been corrected. Employees would be paid for the time the stop work order is in place up to 10 days.
Define employer retaliation as a violation of law.
Bill H.1959/S.1179 is currently under consideration in Massachusetts. In March of this year, the Senate concurred with the House to extend the reporting date to Monday April 4, 2022. On Monday, April 11, 2022, the bill was referred to the committee on House Ways and Means, where it is still pending, after being reported favorably by committee.
If you would like to assist this bill’s passage, please reach out to your Massachusetts state senators and representatives to urge them to support it.
*Note: In the 2009 report Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America’s Cities, Annette Bernhardt of the National Employment Law Project, Douglas Heckathorn (Cornell University), Ruth Milkman (University of California), and Nikolas Theodore (University of Illinois) analyzed over 4,200 surveys of workers in low-wage industries and compiled data on workplace violations. Sixty-eight percent of low-wage workers surveyed experienced wage theft averaging $2,634 per year. The Coalition to Stop Wage Theft drew on figures reported in 2013 by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center to determine that 68% of the low-wage workers in Massachusetts are 349,256 workers. If two thousand dollars are stolen through wage theft violations from this number of workers, this amounts to a collective $698.512 million stolen from MA low wage workers annually. The Report of the Attorney General for Fiscal Year 2014 shows that the amount recovered was only 5.23 million.
Keep Your Benefits
Understanding “LPC” Classification
Our worker members shared a resource called keepyourbenefits.org which provides information on how to avoid being classed as “likely to become a public charge” (LPC) when applying for Lawful Permanent Residence (Green Card) through a family-based petition.
Avoiding this classification makes it safer to access food, health, and housing benefits as a new US resident. LPC is a categorization imposed by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service. These rules allow immigration officials to deny someone’s application for permanent residency in the United States due to an assumption that they will be using “too many” public resources.
This classification was first introduced over a century ago as part of a larger project of eugenic practice that involved the policing and restricting of the borders of the United States. The white supremacist, ableist context of this classification is especially apparent in the archival records from Ellis Island, which Jay Timothy Dolmage discusses in his book, Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability. Dolmage argues that the construction of race and disability categories through the restriction of immigration into the United States played an integral role in the North American eugenics movement, which later influenced the development of Nazism in Europe.
We can see the continuation of this categorization as the continuation of the eugenic project in modern day,
operating through the denial of lawful residence. The LPC classification enables the perpetuation of structural racialized ableism in which immigrants are only viewed as important in so far as they provide labor value for white American capitalism. The LPC classification is one small part of the larger systemic and institutionalized devaluation of migrant people, subjecting them to criminalization and deportation for using public programs to which everyone is entitled.
LPC classification, and uncertainties about how it is determined, lead many people not to use public benefits out of fear that it will jeopardize their applications. Currently, the only public benefits that are part of the Public Charge test are cash benefits (e.g. Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), General Assistance/Relief) and Medicaid for long-term (nursing home) care.
Keepyourbenefits.org has an online tool you can use to help you understand if your public benefits affect immigration options: https://keepyourbenefits.org/en/na/use-the-guide.
Resources
Recommended by our Worker Members for other domestic workers in Massachusetts
MassCOSH Addresses Omicron.
On January 25, MassCOSH held a town hall for workers about the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the virus that causes COVID-19). The event covered Massachusetts sick leave law, and what workers could do to keep themselves safe on the job as COVID-19 cases surged. The event’s recordings, presentations, and other information has been compiled into a Google Drive. https://bit.ly/3DaQthP
CENTRO Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI)
CENTRO is a minority led, community based, multiservice, multicultural, multilingual, nonprofit organization in Central Massachusetts who provide social services to individuals and families while promoting social responsibility, fostering cultural identity, and encouraging families to be significant contributors to the community as a whole.
Dr. Judy Ann Bigby, Secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), created the Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI) to address a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Mass Health-enrolled children under age of 21 with serious emotional disturbance, Rosie D. v. Patrick. This initiative requires new home and community based behavioral health services for youth and families. https://centroinc.org/services/childrens-behavioral-health-initiative/
Parent/Professional Advocacy League (PPAL) Family Support
Massachusetts families with members struggling with mental health can request family support through Parent/Professional Advocacy League (PPAL). PPAL staff members who respond to these requests are primarily family members with lived experience in raising youth with mental health challenges. They supply the information families need to understand and participate in the systems serving their children. https://ppal.net/
Lenny Zakim Grant
The Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers recently received the Lenny Zakim Fund grant. The Lenny Zakim Fund seeks to advance social, economic, and racial justice through funding organizations centering the goals of those most impacted by inequity. The Lenny Zakim Fund awarded us due to our organizing and support of immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts, and we are honored to use the funds to further our organizing, political education, and material support goals.