The YMCA of Central Massachusetts is a cause-driven organization that is for youth development, for healthy living and for social responsibility.
It’s time to reset your year and reclaim your life! Join the REFRESH Challenge for FREE, and each week you’ll receive texts with motivation, workouts, activities, and more. Y Members and non-members are welcome to join us as we rediscover our commitment to health.
We will miss gathering at Saint Vincent Hospital for our annual celebration, but hope you will join us virtually for this important event. Our work with cancer survivors remains a priority and providing a wide-range of services is only possible with your continued support.
We hope you can join us online on Tuesday, November 10th, 2020 (7:00 PM)
The YMCA of Central Massachusetts is participating in the Five Days of Action, October 26-30, 2020. The Five Days of Action is a week designed to raise awareness and inspire adults to take action to protect children from sexual abuse.
Five Days of Action will help communities and parents/caregivers take it One Day at a Time and will offer tips, tools, activities, and resources that are relevant to the current environment.
When adults know how abuse happens, see the warning signs, and respond quickly to prevent abuse, they foster a culture of child abuse prevention. Together, we can bring awareness to the issue of child sexual abuse in our communities and have important conversations around how we can all work together to prevent it from happening.
The YMCA of Central Massachusetts with support from the YMCA Guardians for Child Protection, YMCA of the USA, Darkness to Light, the Redwoods Group Foundation, and Praesidium have made materials available to help adults learn more about preventing child sexual abuse.
For more information about preventing child sexual abuse visit www.fivedaysofaction.org.
5 Days of Action Worksheets
Materials are derived from YMCA of the USA’s “Know. See. Respond.” copyrighted in 2020.
CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE STATISTICS – PROVIDED BY DARKNESS TO LIGHT
WHAT TO DO IF YOU BELIEVE A CHILD IS BEING ABUSED – PROVIDED BY DARKNESS TO LIGHT
About Darkness to Light
Darkness to Light is a nonprofit organization with the mission to empower adults to prevent child sexual abuse through awareness, education, and stigma reduction. Darkness to Light’s flagship program, Stewards of Children®, is an evidence-informed, award-winning training that teaches adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. More than 1.9 million adults have been trained using Darkness to Light trainings. For more information, visit www.D2L.org.
Opinion Article printed in the Telegram and Gazette on Oct. 13, 2020
by David Connell
YMCAs have played an integral part in assisting their communities throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The YMCAs in Massachusetts have fed their neighbors, taken care of the children of essential workers, provided a safe and healthy outdoor space for youth to be this summer, and have opened community learning centers throughout the state. Our YMCA of Central Massachusetts, needs assistance from the state and federal government to help us continue providing support to our communities.
When the coronavirus pandemic began, the YMCA of Central Massachusetts saw a rapid increase in need from our communities, specifically around food. Our YMCA responded to this need by delivering and handing out 67,000 meals to the families and children.
We also responded by opening up four emergency childcare sites for the children of essential workers. We partnered with the state so that parents did not have to pay or worry about who was watching their children while they were on the front lines protecting our state.
This summer our YMCA was able to serve over 900 youth in our programs and summer camps. This was by far the toughest summer we have ever had. But we were able to provide a safe and healthy place for children to be outside, make friends, and in some cases have the best summer ever.
As schools have reopened in our service area, we are providing six spaces through our Worcester, Fitchburg, Southbridge and Westboro remote learning centers for children to be during the day while parents need to be at work. By providing these spaces for our families, we are meeting a community need that had never been there before.
All of these services take more funding than they have in the past. We have had a reduction in staff and a decline in programmatic revenue that we normally depend on to continue our community-based services. While we are trying to provide as much assistance as possible for our onsite remote learning centers, we know that parents were not prepared to pay for care during the day.
The increase in cost for PPE, cleaning supplies, new space, and retaining staff is challenging. The YMCA of Central Massachusetts calls on the state government to support the YMCAs $1.8 Million Youth-At-Risk line item. A sum that we typically match 12:1. This funding goes directly back into the community through our six branches, youth employment, and our childcare assistance.
We also call on the state government and federal government to find more funds to support the remote learning centers of Massachusetts. Parents did not budget for the costs of these centers and centers cannot reduce their costs because of staffing, space, and PPE. We need a pot of funding to be able to reduce this cost for parents and to help us find staff for these essential jobs.
The YMCA is a community anchor that is here for good. We are proud to have stepped forward to serve our neighbors during this time of need and will continue to do so as long as that need remains.
David Connell is president and CEO of the YMCA OF Central Massachusetts
Read the original article online at the telegram.com
The Alliance of Massachusetts YMCAs would like to invite you to a Virtual Legislative Briefing “Stepping Up to Serve our Community” on Thursday, October 15, 2020 at 10:30 a.m.
With our facilities across the commonwealth closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, YMCAs stepped up to provide relief to those in need. From providing meals to emergency childcare and now remote learning, Ys continue to serve their communities in a variety of different ways.
Join the Alliance of YMCAs on Thursday, October 15, 2020 to learn about what the Ys have done, are doing, and how you can join us moving forward.
To register for the webinar, click here.
We look forward to seeing you on the 15th!
Please contact Sharon Henderson with any questions:
[email protected]
(P) 508.755.6101 (ext. 9248)
The annual national observance of Falls Prevention Awareness Week is the week of September 21st through September 25th.
We invite you to join the Massachusetts Falls Prevention Coalition for a live virtual falls prevention educational event hosted by State Representative Paul Tucker on Tuesday, September 22nd from 12:00 pm-12:30 pm.
Join Live Zoom Event Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83996620676?pwd=SUpjYjJNVHFlOEp6SGd5TWZhZDdsQT09
Meeting ID: 839 9662 0676
Passcode: 182663
MASSACHUSETTS FALLS PREVENTION COALITION
The Massachusetts Falls Prevention Coalition was established in 2006 by founding organizations, the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, to raise awareness about the serious problem of older adult falls and associated injuries and promote the availability of successful prevention strategies to help reduce falls rates in Massachusetts.
The month of September is very important to the falls prevention community and the Falls Coalition as it includes a national observance on educating how older adult falls and falls injuries can be prevented previously called Falls Prevention Awareness Day and this year known as Falls Prevention Awareness Week (FPAW). The National Council on Aging has designated the week of September 21st through September 25th 2020 as FPAW. To learn more about what you can do to promote awareness during FPAW, please visit the following website: https://www.ncoa.org/healthy-aging/falls-prevention/falls-prevention-awareness-week/
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