$127K grant to support extra housing advocate for domestic abuse victims

Becky Lockwood, director of the Salasin Project in Greenfield, talks with Individual and Family Support Advocate Jill Predmore. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

By MARY BYRNE
Staff Writer
Published: 5/13/2022 3:07:35 PM
Modified: 5/13/2022 3:05:57 PM

GREENFIELD — A local program aimed at supporting survivors of domestic abuse has been awarded $127,000 to continue its focus on increasing access to housing and economic empowerment, while also implementing support groups in Spanish.

The Greenfield-based Salasin Project, a program of the Western Massachusetts Training Consortium, received the grant through the Massachusetts COVID-19 Survivor Trust Fund.

“The lack of affordable housing can be a significant barrier to someone leaving an abusive relationship,” explained Salasin Project Director Becky Lockwood. “With this funding, we’ll be able to hire a full-time housing advocate who can work with participants to find safe housing and move.”

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Volunteers mobilize for spring cleanups along area roads, woods

Volunteers mobilize for spring cleanups along area roads, woods

Kara Kavanaugh, the recovery coach program supervisor at The RECOVER Project, paints the front window on Friday. For the Recorder/Catherine Hurley[/caption]

By CHRIS LARABEE, JULIAN MENDOZA and CATHERINE HURLEY
Staff Writers

As the weather warms up and people celebrated Earth Day over the weekend, folks around Franklin County took their spring cleaning beyond the walls of their homes and helped clean up their communities.

Cleaning kicks off in Greenfield

At The RECOVER Project in Greenfield, a handful of people gathered to pick up trash along Federal Street on Friday.

Near the Hangar Pub and Grill, Melanie Farr and her son, 11-year-old Henry Rollins, gathered pieces of glass, cans and wires into city-issued blue trash bags.

“It’s more inviting. It looks better,” Farr said of the street as she walked along, adding to her bag.

Inside The RECOVER Project office, Kara Kavanaugh, the recovery coach program supervisor, painted a scene of grass and flowers on the building’s front windows. Earth Day and the cleanup provided an opportunity to change the painting for spring, she said.

“It’s a city that keeps giving back, and we want to give back to the city,” Tom Lavoie, The RECOVER Project’s peer and community engagement coordinator said as he collected trash outside. “It’s pride. We live here.” […]

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Baystate Health awards $1M to five community initiatives

Published: Apr. 14, 2022, 9:07 a.m.
By 

SPRINGFIELD — Baystate Health has awarded $1 million in Better Together Grants to five community initiatives with partner organizations as part of its Community Benefits Program.

“Baystate Health is proud to invest our Determination of Need Community Health Initiative funding in the communities served by our four hospitals. It is an honor to partner with these very deserving local non-profit organizations over the next three years,” said Annamarie Golden, director of community relations for Baystate Health

The recipients are:

[…]
  • Western Massachusetts Training Consortium and The Bridge Program (The Recover Project, The Salasin Project and The Wildflower Alliance), Integrated Networks for Health in an Ideal World: $150,000, two years.

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Join Support Network’s Children’s Mental Health Week Event

Children’s Mental Health Week 2022: Understanding Teen Depression

Join the Support Network as we welcome speakers from Families for Depression Awareness for a conversation about the signs, symptoms and interventions for teen depression. Hear a young person’s perspective about their experience and gain insight about how parents and caregivers can best support their youth.

When: May 5, 2022 from 6:30-8:00
Where: Via Zoom, Zoom ID 264-212-8031

The first 5 attendees to arrive on Zoom will receive a $25.00 Amazon gift card!

RSVP to [email protected] or call or text: 413-530-4689

Salasin Project Receives $127,000 grant from MA COVID 19 Survivor Trust Fund

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Becky Lockwood, Salasin Project Director
(413) 887-2000

Salasin Project Receives $127,000 grant from MA COVID 19 Survivor Trust Fund

GREENFIELD, MA March 29, 2022 – The Salasin Project, a program of the Western Massachusetts Training Consortium, recently received a $127,000 grant from the MA COVID-19 Survivor Trust Fund to expand its work with Franklin and Hampshire County residents who have experienced domestic violence.  The grant will focus on increasing access to housing, economic empowerment, outreach, and implementing support groups in Spanish.

“The lack of affordable housing can be a significant barrier to someone leaving an abusive relationship,” says Becky Lockwood, Salasin Project Director. “With this funding, we’ll be able to hire a full time Housing Advocate who can work with participants to find safe housing and move.” Salasin Project will collaborate with Alianza DV Services, a domestic violence program in Holyoke, to support Hampden County participants interested in moving to Hampshire or Franklin County. “Searching for housing can be overwhelming,” says Carmen Nieves, Executive Director of Alianza, “especially when someone has experienced violence.” The programs will join forces to help survivors relocate.

The Community Action Pioneer Valley Family Center in Greenfield is also partnering with the Salasin Project, where together they will offer Healing from Trauma support groups in Spanish. Healing from Trauma groups will be co-facilitated by bilingual staff from both programs. According to Eric Cora, Program Manager of the Family Center, “We have an active community of Latino families here at the Center and by joining with Salasin we can expand our offerings.”

The grant will pay for training of the support group facilitators, and the Salasin Project hopes that current or former participants will be interested in co-leading the new programs. “Having someone who has experienced violence and who understands how difficult it can be to get back on your feet” is critical to breaking down isolation and creating trust with people who have experienced domestic violence, according to Lockwood.  “That empathy and respect is the most important qualification.”

The Salasin Project is one of 34 community based domestic violence programs funded statewide by the MA Department of Public Health. Call 413.774.4307 for more information or visit: www.salasinproject.org. Alianza offers 24-hour crisis intervention, community-based services and a confidential  shelter program for individuals and families fleeing domestic violence. For more information call the 24-hour hotline: 1.877.536.1628 or visit: https://www.alianzadv.org.  The Community Action Pioneer Valley Family Center uses a strength based and family centered approach to supporting families. For more information call 413.475.1555 or visit: https://www.communityaction.us/family-center.

The Consortium, founded in 1975, is a learning organization committed to creating conditions in which people who have faced marginalization, oppression, or otherwise felt invisible are better able to pursue their dreams and strengthen communities through voice, choice, and inclusion. This is supported by an organizational commitment to address systems of oppression and work toward undoing the harms they have caused. To learn more, visit their website at http://wmtcinfo.org/.

Trusting People as Experts of Themselves: Sera Davidow on the Wildflower Peer Support Line

Trusting People as Experts of Themselves: Sera Davidow on the Wildflower Peer Support Line

An interview with Sera Davidow, Executive Director of Wildflower Alliance on their Peer Support Line and the founding principles of not tracing calls or contacting police without consent.


By

Sera Davidow is a filmmaker, activist, advocate, author, and mother of two very busy kids. As a survivor of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse as a child and relationship violence as an adult, Sera has faced many challenges throughout her own healing process, including many ups and downs with suicidal thoughts, and self-injury. At present, she spends much of her time working as Director of the Wildflower Alliance (formerly known as the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community), which includes Afiya Peer Respite, recently recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of about two dozen exemplary, rights-based programs operating across the world. She also serves on several boards including the Massachusetts Disability Law Center (DLC) Board of Directors, the DLC’s Council Against Institutional and Psychiatric Abuse (CAIPA), as an advisory board member for the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health (NCDVTM), and as a founding Board member of Hearing Voices USA. You can learn more about Sera and her work in an April, 2018 article in Sun Magazine

This interview is the second in a series of conversations being conducted over the next few months around the issue of hotline tracing and intervention. The first interview was with Vanessa Green, founder of Call the Blackline. It is part of Mad in America’s Suicide Hotline Transparency Project, which was born out of the belief that creating transparency and public access around suicide hotline intervention and call-tracing policies should be a priority. This project includes a directory of lines that do not trace or intervene without consent, a public poll, survivor interviews, and an open call for art. Please visit the project page to find out how you can participate.

The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the audio of the interview here.

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