03/02/2022

Senator Sal DiDomenico, State Representative Marjorie Decker, and the Lift our Kids Coalition recently hosted a virtual Sweats and Sweaters Event in support of raising cash assistance grants in the FY23 budget for families living in deep poverty. DiDomenico has been a longtime champion of lifting Massachusetts families out of poverty and has been the lead Senate sponsor of legislation that would end deep poverty in the Commonwealth. In addition to filing this legislation, he has repeatedly partnered with Rep. Decker and the Lift Our Kids Coalition to secure grant increases in the state budget for the Commonwealth’s neediest families.

“Throughout my years the Senate, I have always prioritized legislation to lift families out of poverty, and that commitment has only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said DiDomenico. “While everyone has felt the economic weight of the pandemic, it has certainly hit our Commonwealth’s low-income families the hardest. I am proud of the progress we have made on this issue thus far, but we cannot stop until there is not a single child or senior citizen living in deep poverty. We have another opportunity with our upcoming state budget to make a major difference in the lives and well-being of our most vulnerable residents, and I am fully committed to making sure we get this done.”

The U.S. Census Bureau defines “deep poverty” as living in a household with a total cash income below 50 percent of its poverty threshold. That currently equates to about $915 a month for a family of three. In contrast, Massachusetts’s cash benefits to families, known as Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC), is capped at $715 a month for a family of three, therefore leaving thousands of children well below the level of deep poverty.

DiDomenico and coalition members are calling upon the state Legislature to increase the TAFDC and Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled, and Children (EAEDC) line items by 20 percent in the fiscal 2023 budget. Advocates are also supporting legislation filed by DiDomenico and Decker that would require the state to increases cash assistance grants by 20 percent until reaching half of the federal poverty level while also providing for annual increases to account for inflation. The Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities favorably reported the Senate version of the bill on February 7th, furthering momentum for this policy

Establishes the Genocide Education Trust Fund to educate students on the history of genocide  

(BOSTON–11/24/2021) Senator Sal DiDomenico recently announced that the Massachusetts Legislature has passed An Act concerning genocide education to provide education to middle and high school students on the history of genocide and to promote the teaching of human rights issues.  

The bill requires middle schools and high schools in the Commonwealth to include instruction on the history of genocide. This most recent iteration of the legislation comes as incidences of hate and anti-Semitism are on the rise across the country, with several incidents reported in Massachusetts over the past year.  

“The recent rise in anti-Semitic attacks throughout the United States and rhetoric in our political discourse has reconfirmed the necessity of teaching out young people about the horrors that have been committed in our recent history” said Senator DiDomenico. “We must continue to learn about these atrocities so that we can ensure that they are never repeated. Teaching children about genocide allows for a broader conversation about the sources of prejudice and how those prejudices can be combated. For these reasons, I am proud to cosponsor of this critical legislation, and I am pleased that the Massachusetts Legislature has taken action to pass this bill.” 

In 2020, a widely reported survey commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which gauged Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Generation Z populations, found that 63 percent of survey respondents in the United States did not know six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. The survey also found that nearly half were unfamiliar with Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz. Massachusetts does not currently require Holocaust education or other genocides as part of classroom curriculum.  

This bill would establish a Genocide Education Trust Fund to promote and educate middle and high school students on the history of genocide. Funds in this trust would be used for the instruction of middle and high school students on the history of genocide and ensure the development of curricular materials, as well as to provide professional development training to assist educators in the teaching of genocide.  

The legislation requires each school district to annually file a description of their lesson plan and programs related to genocide education with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). The bill also establishes a competitive grant program that schools, and districts can apply to for additional programming support.   

An Act concerning genocide education now moves to the governor’s desk.  

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DiDomenico amendment to include Department of Youth Services in developing Behavior Health Plans adopted in Final Bill

BOSTON—On November 17, 2021, Senator Sal DiDomenico and his colleagues in Massachusetts Senate passed the Mental Health ABC Act 2.0: Addressing Barriers to Care (ABC), comprehensive legislation to continue the process of reforming the way mental health care is delivered in Massachusetts. This legislation comes at a time when the Massachusetts State Senate is making landmark investments in mental and behavioral health, including $400 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to transform the behavioral health sector, with $122 million dedicated to recruiting and retaining nearly 2,000 behavioral professionals. 

The Mental Health ABC Act 2.0 is driven by the recognition that mental health is as important as physical health for every resident of the Commonwealth and should be treated as such. The bill proposes a wide variety of reforms to ensure equitable access to mental health care and remove barriers to care by supporting the behavioral health workforce.   

“For too long, mental health has been overlooked within our health care system, leaving many Massachusetts residents without access to the critical services and treatment that they need,” said Assistant Majority Leader DiDomenico. “As we know, the COVID-19 pandemic has only increased the need for critical mental health resources, which are just as important as those for physical health.” “I am proud of the steps my colleagues in the Senate, and I have taken to remove barriers and increase parity in mental health care.”  

Amendments to the bill included provisions focused on suicide prevention and mental health care for people who are incarcerated, among other things. Senator DiDomenico also filed an amendment which was adopted to the final bill. His amendment would include the Department of Youth Services as a collaborator in developing the annual plan for promotion of behavioral health with the newly developed office of behavioral health promotion, which would bring an experienced voice in violence prevention and trauma-specific intervention and rehabilitation. Additionally, the Office of Behavioral Health Promotion would be tasked with identifying and disseminating evidence-based practices to prevent violence through trauma-specific intervention and rehabilitation.  

“The fact of the matter is that a lot of behavioral health cannot be addressed without also the influences of community violence and its surrounding trauma. This has touched all of our districts, including mine” said Senator DiDomenico. “As we all know, the work surrounding violence prevention, at-risk youth, and trauma-informed treatments is far from over. But I am excited to have this amendment provide progress and to continue our work with our often-overlooked communities”. 

The final bill establishes a suicide postvention task force dedicated to addressing the after-effects of a confirmed suicide and requires the Department of Public Health (DPH) to collect data on the physical location of suicides and the number of known attempts made by any person at the same location. It also directs the state 911 department to integrate training on identification of and response to callers experiencing behavioral health crises into the certification standards for 911 workers, and, in anticipation of the establishment of a new national ‘988’ hotline in July, designates one or more ‘988’ crisis hotline centers to provide crisis intervention services and crisis care coordination to individuals accessing the suicide prevention and behavioral health crisis hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week.   

The final bill also allows people who are incarcerated experiencing acute mental health distress to petition to seek proper care in a Department Mental Health (DMH) facility as opposed to being subjected to in-prison ‘mental health watch,’ establishes a special commission to review and make recommendations to remedy administrative burdens to accessing mental health care and behavioral health care services, and requires the Office of Behavioral Health Promotion to ascertain the mental health needs of veterans.  

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