BOSTON—At last week’s Roca 30th Anniversary Community Celebration Senator Sal DiDomenico received the Unsung Hero Award for his dedication and commitment throughout the years to his community and the youth of Roca.  DiDomenico has been a longtime supporter of Roca and its mission to disrupt the cycle of poverty and incarceration by helping young people transform their lives.

“I would like to extended my sincerest thanks to Molly Baldwin and everyone at Roca for presenting me with an Unsung Hero Award at last night’s 30th Anniversary Community Celebration,” said Senator DiDomenico. “Roca does phenomenal work for the youth in our community; they not only change lives, but they save lives each day. Their work has been noticed by leaders from across the country and they are now working with young people in several cities throughout the United States. I am very proud to support the entire Roca team through our work at the State House, and I look forward to 30 more years of them making a positive impact in our community.”

DiDomenico has worked with Roca on multiple occasions to raise awareness on their mission in the State House and to secure funding that will support at-risk youth in our community. In 2017, DiDomenico brought his Massachusetts Senate colleagues to Roca’s Chelsea facility to learn more about their unique Intervention Model as part of the Senate’s Commonwealth Conversations tour across the Commonwealth. The Senators had the opportunity to meet with Roca’s youth workers, educators, crew supervisors and program staff to discuss their high-risk young men and young mothers programs and hear from the young adults who work to transform their lives with Roca’s help.

The Senator has also been a longtime supporter of Roca’s legislative and budget priorities, working with them to advocate for and advance juvenile justice reform legislation and state funding that will support Roca’s important work.  

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BOSTON– As part of Hunger Action Month, Senator Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett) last week participated in the Hunger Awareness Rally at the State House. DiDomenico was joined at the rally by DTA Commissioner Jeff McCue, Representative Jay Livingstone, Representative Hannah Kane and Representative Joe McGonagle.

Senator DiDomenico has long made food insecurity and nutrition policy a top priority and has been a leading champion for anti-hunger policies in the Massachusetts Legislature. At the rally, DiDomenico was recognized for his advocacy in the Legislature, and he spoke on the importance fighting against cuts to nutritional programming on the federal level and the need to continue expanding access to these services here in Massachusetts.

“While nutritional access is under attack at the federal level, here in Massachusetts, we know how valuable nutritional programs like SNAP are when it comes to improving the health and wellbeing our hardworking families,” said Senator DiDomenico. “I, along with my legislative partner, will continue working to ensure that everyone in our Commonwealth has access to the nutrition they need and deserve, and I am very proud to be the lead Senate sponsor of policies like the SNAP Gap and Breakfast After The Bell bills to help expand nutritional access for our Commonwealth’s children and families. I would like to especially thank The Greater Boston Food Bank, Project Bread, the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute and countless other hunger relief organizations for their partnership and that all they do to raise awareness on this incredibly important issue for our Commonwealth and our nation.”

The Senator has personally filed two major pieces of legislation this session that would have a direct impact on food insecurity here in the Commonwealth:

• An Act improving public health through a common application for core food, health and safety-net programs (i.e. the SNAP Gap bill)- This bill would create a common application portal to let low-income households apply for MassHealth and SNAP at the same time, thereby consolidating the application process and raising awareness of SNAP eligibility. This bill would help more low income students access free school meals, increasing food access for over 100,000 Massachusetts elders, and help more families meet their basic needs.

• An Act regarding to breakfast after the bell-  This legislation would require all public K-12 schools with 60% or more students eligible for free or reduced-price meals under the federal National School Lunch Program to offer breakfast after the instructional day begins to increase student participation in free and reduced price breakfasts and decrease the amount of kids that start the school day hungry.

The Senator’s breakfast after the bell bill passed the Massachusetts Senate in July with a unanimous and bipartisan vote, and Senator DiDomenico is continuing to work with the Rise and Shine MA coalition to advocate for the bill’s final passage during informal session by the end of the year. 

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BOSTON – Senator Sal DiDomenico and his colleagues in the Massachusetts Legislature recently passed bipartisan legislation providing an additional set of tools to address the opioid crisis and establishing the Commonwealth as a national leader in the fight against this epidemic. Among the provisions included in the bill are increasing access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT), exploring tools to reduce harm and save lives, expanding prevention efforts, and addressing the high rates of co-occurring conditions of substance use disorder (SUD) and mental illness. 

The bill, An Act for prevention and access to appropriate care and treatment of addiction, is the result of  extensive work researching evidence-based best practices and collaborating with healthcare researchers and clinicians, hospitals, behavioral health providers, law enforcement officials, patient advocates and individuals with lived experience, to develop policies to address the opioid epidemic.

“This comprehensive bill is a critical next step in our Commonwealth’s commitment to fighting the opioid epidemic,” said Senator DiDomenico. “By focusing on prevention and ensuring that people have greater access to the medicine and treatment they need, we can continue to be a leader in this growing national crisis and help people get the support they need.”

Under this bill, someone who receives treatment in an emergency department (ED) for an opioid overdose will now have the opportunity to begin treatment for their SUD before they leave the ED. The bill requires that all EDs and all satellite emergency facilities have the capacity to initiate voluntary SUD treatment, including opioid agonist treatment, after treatment for overdose.

Under the legislation, the Department of Public Health (DPH) is directed to issue a statewide standing order authorizing every pharmacy in the state to dispense naloxone, eliminating the current requirement that each pharmacy obtain an individual authorization. The bill also brings Massachusetts in line with other states by providing liability protections, including protection from criminal or civil liability, for practitioners who prescribe and pharmacists who dispense naloxone in good faith.

In Massachusetts, nearly 1 out of every 11 individuals dying from opioid-related overdoses has a history of incarceration in state jails and prisons, and in 2015 alone, nearly 50% of all deaths among those released from incarceration were opioid-related. In response, this bill makes significant strides towards extending access to medication-assisted treatment in correctional facilities, making medication-assisted treatment available in the state correctional system and establishing a medication-assisted treatment pilot program at 5 county correctional facilities.

The bill also includes several provisions to address dual diagnosis and the high rates of co-occurring SUD and mental illness in the Commonwealth. According to the National Association on Mental Illness-Massachusetts, over 50% of individuals seeking treatment for SUD also suffer from a mental health condition. To ensure that the right kind of treatment facilities will be available to serve every patient who needs treatment, the bill enhances the oversight authority of the Department of Mental Health (DMH) and the DPH’s Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (DPH/BSAS) – the two agencies that license facilities that provide treatment for mental illness and addiction.

Under the bill, a center for police training in crisis intervention is established to serve as a clearinghouse for best practices in police response to people with mental illness and substance use disorders. The center would also implement crisis intervention training for all municipal police officers and provide technical assistance to cities and towns to form collaborative partnerships between law enforcement and human service providers to maximize referrals to treatment services. 

In addition, the legislation recognizes the important role that recovery coaches play in successful long-term addiction and mental illness treatment by creating a commission to recommend standards for establishing a professional credential for recovery coaches as an important step toward formalizing the role that they play in the pathway to treatment and recovery. 

The bill also creates a Community-Based Behavioral Health Promotion and Prevention Trust Fund to promote positive mental, emotional and behavioral health among children and young adults and to prevent substance use disorders among children and young adults.

The bill also updates the state’s partial fill law by clarifying that any patient who decides to partially fill a prescription for a Schedule II controlled substance will not have to pay a duplicate co-pay at the pharmacy if they decide to fill the remainder of the prescription later.

In an attempt to ensure that those experiencing chronic pain have access to the treatments  they need, the bill also establishes a MCPAP for Pain program to provide remote consultations to primary care practices, nurse practitioners and other health care providers who are caring for chronic pain patients.  

This bill was signed by the Governor on August 9, 2019.

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