March 2022 Newsletter

What some families committed to healthier communities really want.

“. . . Legal information and rights education [is] an important factor in creating healthy communities. . . . These resources can save families from being illegally separated, evicted, jailed or even deported.”

Part 3 of 3 in our Rights, Resources & the Next Generation blog interview series, this new blog features insights from Dounia Belmir and Erin Connors, each a parent-leader with Smart from the Start. Smart is one of MLPB’s three partner communities invested in Building Legal Problem-Solving in the Early Childhood Sector, a planning process made possible with support from The JPB Foundation.

Thank you so much, Dounia and Erin, for sharing your critical perspectives!

Read the blog

2022 Virtual Social Work Symposium
Strengthening the Social Care Toolbox With Legal Education

Over the past two years, new evidence bolstering the link between rights education and quality of care has been generated through the Housing Prescriptions as Health Care pilot and the DULCE (Developmental Understanding and Legal Collaboration for Everyone) national learning network.

On April 29, join us and key collaborators at the Symposium to explore how legal information and rights education is animating care redesign in communities across the country. This panel will feature:

Kate Gannon, Law & Policy Consultant – MLPB
Azieb Ermias, Senior Associate and Project Director for DULCE – Center for the Study of Social Policy
Allison Bovell-Ammon, Director of Policy Strategy – Children’s HealthWatch at Boston Medical Center

Thank you for hosting this important conversation, NASW-MA! Registration details are available here.

Designed for teams committed to human-centered social care, MLPB’s Digital Digest distills key law and policy updates across many domains of health-related social need that impact individuals, families, and communities.

While April is around the corner, winter is not quite over for New Englanders!

In Massachusetts, the annual moratorium protecting eligible customers from utility terminations ends on March 31, 2022. Limited utility assistance remains available.

MA – Utilities & Internet Digital Digest

In Rhode Island, the moratorium expires on April 15, 2022, although it is not unusual to see an extension through May 1, 2022 if the weather is particularly cold.

RI – Utilities & Internet Digital Digest