Massachusetts Department of Public Health – Bureau of Community Health and Prevention
Providing technical assistance to Massachusetts Department of Public Health funded organizations to support healthy relationships
Summary
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) funds healthy relationship promotion and teen dating violence prevention grants in populations experiencing high rates of dating and sexual violence. These efforts involves partnerships with domestic and/or sexual violence prevention programs, schools or other youth-serving organizations, and organizations serving specific cultural populations to implement youth-specific programming and cross-training of project partners to improve services to underserved populations of youth. Positive youth development is a core part of programming, with a focus on youth leadership prioritized whenever possible.
The Division of Sexual and Domestic Violence Prevention and Services (DSDV) within the Bureau of Community Health and Prevention (BCHAP) oversees the implementation of the Healthy Relationships Grant Program. Root Cause provides project coordination, data collection support, and technical assistance to Healthy Relationship Grant partners selected to participate in the program. Root Cause also supports evaluation efforts for the Healthy Relationship grants to determine effectiveness of programming and improvement in policies and partnerships.
Goals & Results
In Year 1, Root Cause provided dedicated technical assistance and support to Healthy Relationship program grantees through four Community of Practice sessions that focused on performance measures, social determinants of health, root causes of health inequities, and positive youth development. Now in Year 2, Root Cause continues to support these efforts, building on lessons learned so far to deepen the impact of the program.
The goals of the Healthy Relationship project are to:
- Work with youth aged 12-18 to promote healthy relationships of all kinds and to prevent sexual violence and dating abuse.
- Work together to adopt policies and practices within youth-serving organizations or school-based settings to reduce sexual assault and dating violence among youth and promote racial equity.
- Collaborate to build capacity of partner agencies to support youth, value youth leadership, and safely, effectively, and sustainably continue working with youth to promote healthy relationships and prevent harmful behaviors.
About the Partner
Massachusetts Department of Public Health – Bureau of Community Health and Prevention
The mission of Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Community Health and Prevention (BCHAP) is to promote the well-being of everyone in Massachusetts, with attention on populations disproportionately impacted by health inequities. We aim to reduce social and structural barriers that lead to poor health by working with communities, people and partners across the Commonwealth. BCHAP commits to transforming the systems that maintain racial and social inequities and owns its responsibility as part of the government to prevent these injustices.
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