CPR First Aid / ADVOCACY VICTORIES IN THE COMMONWEALTH

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CPR First Aid/ ADVOCACY VICTORIES IN THE
COMMONWEALTH
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We are excited that with the end of our fiscal
year that we have a lot of advocacy wins to
celebrate. This was a true team effort that could
not be achieved without your support of our work,
taking action on alerts, being part of lobby day,
and you, our dedicated volunteers being tireless
advocates throughout the year. We were
successful in leading a campaign to secure a
500,000 appropriation for Stroke Education and
awareness including a specific earmark of
200,000 to support the state Stroke registry.
The 200,000 earmark met the Goal Guidance
criteria for Stroke Registry funding.
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In the early winter Boston joined almost 90
cities and towns across Massachusetts to set the
minimum age at 21 and with Boston joining the
movement more than ½ of the population live in
cities and towns where 21 is the minimum age. In
May we were able to add to the local 21 push when
the cities and Towns of Brockton, Carver,
Chelsea, Essex , Falmouth, Gloucester, Hadley,
Halifax, Marblehead, Norfolk, North Adams, North
Attleboro, Plainville, Shelburne, Southampton,
Sunderland and Tewksbury cumulatively
representing 324,199 residents were confirmed to
have passed T-21 policy. In June the
Cities/Towns of Great Barrington, Lowell,
Stoughton and Worcester passed T-21 legislation
adding an additional 317,365 Massachusetts
residents living in communities that now have a
minimum legal age of 21 to purchase Tobacco
products. These additions mean that 121 of the
351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth have
T-21 laws. We are confident that this momentum
will help us pass the Statewide Tobacco 21 bill
by July 31st!
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For a number of years we have been working on
Complete Streets to secure necessary funding and
policy language so that we can create healthier
communities for all of our residents. I am
excited to say that the Massachusetts state
Transportation Improvement plan will be
dedicating a total of 110 million dollars over
the next 5 years to programs and projects to
improve access to safe bicycle and pedestrian
programs that will help people who walk, bike,
run and roll do so more safely. This campaign
involved not only working to appropriate the
funds but also to influence the Capital
Improvement Plan to ensure that all modes of
transportation are considered in road improvement
design.
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Lastly we were able to secure a win for our local
CPR in Schools efforts. Unlike most other states,
nearly all curriculum decisions are decided at
the local level which means that we have to work
with local school Superintendents and School
Committees to implement CPR Graduation
requirements in school districts across the
State. This particular win reflects the passage
of policies in the Worcester, Springfield and the
Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional school
districts. These three school districts
represent an additional 3,169 High School
Graduating Seniors who will learn the
fundamentals of CPR before they graduate. In all,
we have worked with 2 additional districts that
require some form of CPR training before students
graduate with an overall total of 5,317 students
trained each year.
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We have also identified an additional 26 school
districts with over 12,000 annual graduates to
focus on in FY 16-17. This is a particularly
satisfying win because it took a true team effort
to get this down, and without our volunteers
dedication and outreach we would not be making
the progress that we are! Learn more about CPR
First Aid. Bergenfield, NJ, Jersey City, NJ,
Livingston, NJ, Queens, NY?. Source
yourethecure.org