Disclaimers

Care Massachusetts is a training and technical assistance center that is designed to support municipalities and regional collaboratives to spend their opioid abatement funds in accordance with the State Subdivision Agreement. Per the Agreement:

• Funds are required to be used to “supplement and strengthen resources available to communities and families for prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery.”
• Municipalities must make decisions that “reflect the input of our communities, of people who have personal experience with the opioid crisis, of experts in treatment and prevention, and of staff and organizations that are carrying out the abatement work.”

Care Massachusetts does not have a formal role in enforcing the terms of the State Subdivision Agreement. However, as a contracted entity with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, our staff are in regular contact with the Bureau of Substance Addiction Services about the strategies municipalities/regional collaboratives are funding with their abatement dollars as well as their successes and challenges in using the funds. We also maintain a publicly-facing dashboard to ensure that reporting on the use of funds is as transparent as possible. Care Massachusetts regularly monitors and aggregates data from municipal reports to evaluate the extent to which funds have been used in alignment with requirements. Our goal is to help put your municipality/regional collaborative in a strong position to justify your use of the funds, build public trust, and, most importantly, help those most impacted by the overdose epidemic.