Berkshire County Shares in $3.8 Million for Youth Substance Abuse

The Executive Office of Health and Human Services and the Department of Public Health has announced $3.8 million in annual grants to 31 youth substance use prevention programs serving communities across the Commonwealth, and several of the programs are here in Berkshire County.

According to a press release from the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, this is the third Massachusetts Collaborative for Action, Leadership, and Learning award under the Substance Misuse Prevention Grant Programs. The grants will be distributed over eight years to support local substance use prevention efforts in communities across the Commonwealth.

The grant recipients in the Berkshires include the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, and the Railroad Street Youth Project. You can see the full list of recipients below.

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The program outlines three goals:

Community engagement and capacity building: To be deployed for communities with limited or no existing capacity and infrastructure to implement a systematic public health planning process and a comprehensive set of evidence-based prevention programs, policies, and practices to prevent youth substance misuse.

Comprehensive strategy implementation: Communities with existing prevention program capacity and experience will receive additional support to implement a comprehensive set of prevention services directed at youth and focused on substances of first use, such as alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis.

Innovation and promising practices implementation: Communities that have already implemented a detailed substance misuse plan or adapted an existing approach that has not been formally described in prevention literature will receive expert assistance in examining and disseminating new and emerging practices that have the potential to fill gaps in current prevention scientific evidence.

The Commonwealth continues to invest in and support evidence-based initiatives that address the very serious issue of substance use among our young people... These awards build on the Administration’s commitment to expand pathways to substance use prevention programs at all levels in every area of the state. ~ Governor Charlie Baker

The grant award begins in FY22 and continues through FY29. The program is funded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment block grant.

Here is the complete list of award recipients:

Barnstable County Department of Human Services
Bay State Community Services Inc. (Quincy, Braintree, Milton, Randolph and Weymouth)
Berkshire Regional Planning Commission
Boston Public Health Commission
City of Brockton
City of Chelsea
City of Fall River
City of Fitchburg
City of Gloucester
City of Lowell
City of Lynn
City of Medford
City of Newburyport
City of Peabody (Peabody Police Department)
City of Springfield
City of Somerville
City of Worcester
Collaborative for Educational Services (Amherst, Northampton, Easthampton, South Hadley, and Hadley)
Family Services of the Merrimack Valley
Franklin Regional Council of Governments
High Point Treatment Center (Carver, Middleboro, Plymouth, and Wareham)
Hopkinton Youth and Family Services – Town of Hopkinton
Martha’s Vineyard
Northern Berkshire Community Coalition
Project R.I.G.H.T., Inc. (Boston)
Quabbin Drug Response Unifying Group (Barre, Hardwick, Hubbardston, New Braintree, and Oakham)
Railroad Street Youth Project (Great Barrington, Stockbridge, Egremont, and Sheffield)
SSTAR (Taunton, Attleboro, Mansfield, and Norton)
Town of Hudson
Town of Stoughton
Wayside Youth and & Family Support Network (Framingham)