Springfield WORKS Cliff Pilot Awarded $700,000 from The Massachusetts Community Health and Healthy Aging Funds
Springfield WORKS is pleased to announce that we have been awarded a $700,000 grant from The Massachusetts Community Health and Healthy Aging Funds (The Funds). Created in 2017 when the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) completed a landmark revision if its Determination of Need regulation, the Funds work to address the root causes of health inequities and create lasting improvements in population health. As part of these awards, DPH, the Executive Office of Elder Affairs (EOEA), and the implementing partner Health Resources in Action, Inc., will join with Springfield WORKS and 26 lead organizations and more than 40 of their partner organizations impacting 458 cities and towns across Massachusetts.
Spread over five years, this grant will support the policy work integral to the Bridge to Prosperity Pilot program (Cliff Pilot)—aiming to help workers across the Commonwealth advance their careers and earn more without facing the financial barriers created by cliff effects. This funding will help center the voices of lived experience and community stakeholders impacted by the cliff effect, and further the effort to build effective policy solutions that truly serve the needs of communities.
The cliff effect creates a significant obstacle to economic mobility, particularly for women and people of color who make up a large portion of the care workforce. As individuals earn more and advance in their careers, they can face a sudden loss of public benefits that leave them financially worse off, despite higher wages. The Cliff Pilot will work with healthcare employers to align career pathways, ensuring that promotions and advancements are accompanied by the necessary support to prevent workers from experiencing the cliff effect.
Springfield WORKS’ engagement with the healthcare employment sector is a key component of this larger effort to create sustainable change that will benefit healthcare workers and, by extension, the communities they serve. However, this is just one piece of the community health picture. Outside of the clinical setting, poverty is a critical driver of the social determinants of health, and for many families, the cliff effect traps them in a cycle of poverty, perpetuating poor and inequitable health outcomes. We must build community-driven policy and environmental stewardship into our systems and solutions that foster long-term community health.
“Bringing voices of lived experience into the conversation is a critical yet sometimes overlooked part of policy solution development. We are ecstatic to have the funding to support opportunities to bring community members to the table to not only share their experiences but to help drive policy and systems change here in Massachusetts.” – Hannah Reuter, Bridge to Prosperity Pilot Director
This funding from Community Health and Healthy Aging Funds will enable us to strengthen our commitment to driving systems change that bolsters community resiliency, health, and access to opportunity.