Section 1. There shall be a mental health capacity grant program established within the department of mental health for the purpose of addressing increased mental health needs in nonprofit organizations at high risk of hate crimes, as defined in section 32 of chapter 22c of the General Laws.
The program shall make grants available to nonprofit organizations at high risk of hate crimes, as defined in section 32 of chapter 22c of the General Laws, to increase behavioral health competency of staff who have frequent interactions with targeted communities and to expand supportive programming to the same populations. The grants shall be used to support programming determined by an organization’s specific needs to address mental health including but not limited to (a) mental health first aid training, (b) culturally responsive referral programs, (c) community education and destigmatization of mental health supports, (d) and any other programming shown to effectively impact positive mental health.
Subject to appropriation, the department shall promulgate regulations to develop provisions around grantmaking including that the grants shall be distributed in a geographically equitable manner across the commonwealth and distributed in a manner that correlates with bias types included in the preceding year’s annual hate crime report by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.
No later than 6 months from the distribution of the first grant, the commissioner shall file a report with the clerks of the senate and house of representatives, the joint committee on mental health, substance use and recovery, the joint committee on racial equity, civil rights, and inclusion, and the house and senate committees on ways and means detailing the grant program, which shall include, but not be limited to: (i) the number of applications received; (ii) the number of grants awarded; (iii) the dollar amount per grant; (iv) the organizational mission of each grantee; and (v) the type of programming supported by each grant.
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