Boston Alliance for Community Health

Initiatives and Activities

"When you add us all up, BACH's membership is in the thousands. Some of us are from the neighborhood and some of us are from an organization. We may not always agree on everything, but in the end, we all want the same thing: safe and healthy communities."

Coalition Grants

BACH has also provided some small grants to neighborhood coalitions to address one or more of the strategic issues at the neighborhood level. Five that we are highlighting are:

South Boston Collaborative Advisory Committee

  • SBCAN continues its leadership in addressing trauma and resilience. They convened an intensive training on Psychological First Aid which attracted over 140 participants. They are active members of the All Hazards Psychological Trauma Network developed by our speaker, Atyia Martin, when she was at the Boston Public Health Commission. And they continue to valiantly address the opioid epidemic and its resultant overdoses and suicides in the neighborhood

Jamaica Plain Tree of Life/Arbol de Vida

  • Jamaica Plain Tree of Life/Arbol de Vida recently completed an assessment of youth employment programs in Boston, and specifically in JP. They used a “designing from the margins” framework picture and identified that there were no programs who target undocumented or illiterate youth; most programs do not have a mental health component or home visits and are almost all focused on summer employment and for those who speak English.

Roxbury Community Alliance for Health/Whittier Street Health Center

  • The coalition and health center provided 14 youths from the community with employment to participate in our trauma project.  Our achievements were measured by the involvement of youth in a project that allowed them to become knowledgeable on the long-term negative effects of trauma, provide psycho-education on trauma to the individuals in their communities they interviewed as well as be active members of a Youth Advisory Board geared at helping them bring their voices and ideas to current issues facing the community. The project also helped them to develop their skills in leadership, advocacy, and community activism. Youth participants were trained on trauma by our community clinician and then were sent out in the community to conduct individual interviews with community members focused on trauma awareness.

Codman Square Neighborhood Association 

  • Codman Square Neighborhood Association has accomplished many things including youth distributing 6500 brochures promoting the Fairmont Line and the Talbot Ave. T stop; continued focus on healthy food and beverages including running the Codman Square Farmers Market and getting 2 neighborhood stores to promote healthy beverages); successfully getting 6 stores fined for selling tobacco to minors; and helping install wayfinding signs to increase walking and biking in the neighborhood. And the leadership development work of CSNC continues with BOLD Teens alumnae Shayna Holloway now the adult leader of BOLD Teens and Nebby Stephens, Codman Square Health Center’s first pediatric patient and community resident hired as a nurse practitioner at the health center.

The North Dorchester Coalition

  • The North Dorchester Coalition has Piloted an anti-violence initiative called PeaceKeepers, which trained 24 youth between the ages of 13-20 over the summer from two sites, Girlz Radio and Project RIGHT. The curriculum developed, used conflict resolution, de-escalation and mediation skills as tools to give young people the power to affect change in their community with adult support. Youth participants were able to use these skills during summer programming and in daily life, when higher instances of violence tend to happen amongst youth in Boston.