On June 26, Children鈥檚 Aid was preparing to continue summer sexual health and youth development programming in schools, foster care settings and community organizations across New York City.

By the end of the day, the federal funding behind that work was gone.

The Trump administration terminated Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants nationwide with immediate effect, stripping Children鈥檚 Aid of $936,700 a year with two years still remaining on its grant. 

Children鈥檚 Aid has worked in under-resourced New York communities for more than 170 years. Its health and wellness division operates two community clinics and six school-based health centers and provides medical, dental, behavioral health, nutrition, family planning and health care management services.

Children鈥檚 Aid also provided programming at the Administration for Children鈥檚 Services Children鈥檚 Center, where children may stay while waiting for placement in the foster care system.

The organization had no time to prepare its staff, community partners or the approximately 1,200 young people it served annually.

Several nonprofit groups and local governments have filed a lawsuit challenging the administration鈥檚 termination of Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants and its changes to the program鈥檚 evidence-based framework. Separately, 79 members of the Democratic Women鈥檚 Caucus and the broader House Democratic Caucus sent HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a letter demanding that the canceled grants be restored.

In the meantime, Children鈥檚 Aid is grappling with what comes next.

The funding cut reaches across the predominantly Black and Latino communities in the Bronx, Harlem and Brooklyn, as well as Staten Island, where Children鈥檚 Aid brought medically accurate information and trusted adults directly to young people. Nine staff members were affected, including six full-time and three part-time employees.

鈥淲e received notification on June 26 that effective June 26 our funding would be terminated,鈥� said Rhonda Braxton, vice president for health and wellness at Children鈥檚 Aid. 鈥淭here was no advance notification, and there was no runway to really end the program.鈥�

Across New York City, the administration鈥檚 decision eliminated $4.3 million in annual funding from three grantee organizations and disrupted services reaching more than 19,000 young people.

At Children鈥檚 Aid, the loss extends beyond one program. 

It threatens work in schools and community spaces, specialized programming for foster youth and the organization鈥檚 Just Ask Me peer education initiative. The grant supported a network of adults and youth leaders who taught consent, healthy relationships, communication, medical advocacy and informed decision-making.

The government did not simply remove money from a budget. It cut through years of relationships built in communities where young people already face the greatest barriers to care. The administration canceled 53 grants nationwide as part of a broader overhaul of the federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. Its new funding criteria direct organizations to teach abstinence as the only certain method of preventing pregnancy and place increased emphasis on marriage, fertility and preparing young people for parenthood.

The standards make little reference to preventing sexually transmitted infections and offer virtually no recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender young people.

The administration has defended the new direction as an effort to steer federal dollars toward abstinence-focused education. That approach reflects a broader conservative argument that comprehensive sexual health programs treat teen sexual activity as unavoidable and diminish parents鈥� role in guiding their children.  

When 19th News requested comment, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to the initial query.

But leaders at Children鈥檚 Aid do not describe their work as encouraging teenagers to have sex.

They described teaching young people how to recognize an unhealthy relationship. How to communicate. How to give or withhold consent. How to talk to a doctor. How to resist pressure from a friend or partner. How to make decisions that protect the future they want.

The organization had received federal teen pregnancy prevention funding since 2015. Through the grant, staff delivered evidence-based sexual health and youth development programs during the school day, after school and through community organizations.

Pascale Saintonge Austin, director of family planning and pregnancy prevention programs at Children鈥檚 Aid, said foster youth face distinct challenges that cannot be addressed by distributing generic health information. 

鈥淲e won鈥檛 be able to provide such a specific curriculum to them anymore that was tailored and made for them,鈥� Saintonge Austin said.

The organization鈥檚 Just Ask Me peer health education program is also at risk. Known as JAM, the initiative trains high school students to co-facilitate programs, organize events, advocate for adolescent health and dispel misinformation among their peers.

The young people applied for the positions and were hired based on federal funding that the government withdrew without notice. Children鈥檚 Aid must now determine whether it can retain all of them beyond the end of summer.

鈥淭hey love this work. They鈥檙e involved in this work,鈥� Saintonge Austin said. 鈥淲e will have to make some decisions toward the end of August or beginning of September about whether or not we can even keep all of the peers without some kind of intervention.鈥�

Programs like the ones run by Children’s Aid have made a difference, federal lawmakers say, and Democratic members of Congress are demanding that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explain the terminations and restore the funding.

Rep. Judy Chu of California said in a statement to The 19th that the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program has provided medically accurate, evidence-based information for more than 15 years and has helped young people prevent sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancies and unhealthy relationships.

鈥淭here is simply no justification for abruptly terminating $68 million from programs with a proven record of improving young people鈥檚 health,鈥� Chu said. 鈥淭he Trump administration鈥檚 decision is reckless, indefensible and directly undermines the purpose for which Congress provided these funds. That鈥檚 why my Democratic Women鈥檚 Caucus colleagues and I are demanding answers from Secretary Kennedy about why these grants were terminated and calling for this critical funding to be restored.鈥�

Another lawmaker, Rep. Kelly Morrison of Minnesota, an OBGYN, described the decision as both a physician and lawmaker.

鈥淭he administration has unilaterally taken away helpful and potentially life-saving resources from the young people that need them,鈥� Morrison said in a statement to The 19th. 鈥淐anceling research-backed, evidence-based programs that prevent STIs, decrease teen pregnancy and save lives is a dangerous policy decision.鈥�

The administration鈥檚 criteria place marriage and future parenthood at the center of adolescent sexual health.

But for Saintonge Austin, that framing fails to account for the actual questions young people bring into Children鈥檚 Aid classrooms.

Those questions are often about loneliness, acceptance, pressure, confidence and the struggle to establish boundaries. They come from teenagers trying to understand how to care for themselves while growing up in a world that does not always provide them with safe or reliable guidance.

Federal policy may define the program by the pregnancies it seeks to prevent. The young people inside it experience something broader: a place where they can speak honestly, learn whom to trust and develop the skills to enter adulthood with greater control over their lives.

鈥淎 lot of times people equate teen pregnancy prevention with sex,鈥� Saintonge Austin said. 鈥淚 always say it鈥檚 never that. It鈥檚 about, 鈥業 want my friend to like me. I want to know how to have a healthy relationship. I don鈥檛 know how to say no, or I don鈥檛 know how to negotiate.鈥� It goes beyond the physical act. It鈥檚 really about how to navigate a world, become a healthy adult and make decisions in a way where you can reach the goals that you want.鈥�

The need for that work feels urgent in New York City, where the birthrate for teenagers not only remains above the national average, but has begun inching back up after a long decline.

鈥淐ongress specifically funded TPPP because evidence-based prevention programs work, and the Administration owes Congress and the American people an explanation for disregarding that clear directive,鈥� said Chu. 鈥淲e should be strengthening these proven programs, not jeopardizing young people鈥檚 access to the accurate health information and resources they need to thrive.鈥�

Nationwide, the birthrate has fallen over the past 15 years, to 11.7 births per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19 last year, according to federal data. That鈥檚 a drop of more than 65 percent since 2010, when the rate was 34.3 births per 1,000 teenage girls.

have attributed the long decline to several factors, including fewer teenagers having sex and increased contraception use among those who are sexually active. Federal prevention programs have also been credited with helping young people delay sexual activity and make informed health decisions.

New York City was part of that trend for a long time. However, it has begun moving in the opposite direction.

In , three out of every four pregnancies among New York City teenagers were unintended, according to the city health department.

Those pregnancies were also concentrated in communities with the fewest resources. The teen pregnancy rate in neighborhoods with very high poverty was 3.6 times the rate in the city鈥檚 lowest-poverty communities, according to New York City鈥檚 Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity, and many of these teenagers are Black and Latinx. They continue to face the effects of systemic racism, historic disinvestment and reduced access to health care and other resources that support healthy lives.

Saintonge Austin said the recent rise demonstrates what can happen when young people lose consistent access to sexual health education.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, much of Children鈥檚 Aid鈥檚 school-based programming was interrupted. New York City high school students did not broadly return to buildings until spring 2021, and schools facing enormous academic losses had to make difficult choices about which subjects and services to prioritize.

At the same time, teenagers were spending more time online, where accurate information competed with rumors and misinformation spreading across social media.

鈥淚t shows what happens when there鈥檚 this sort of disruption in mass education around comprehensive sexual health education,鈥� Saintonge Austin said. 鈥淲e were really getting back into the flow of it being integrated into their education and their spaces again, and now the funding was pulled.鈥�

The disruption is occurring again, this time by federal design.

Braxton said Children鈥檚 Aid has tried to place affected employees in other vacant positions within the organization when possible. It has contacted school and community partners, notified elected officials and begun searching for other funding.

But replacing nearly $1 million each year is not a realistic short-term solution.

鈥淲e have very generous donors,鈥� Braxton said. 鈥淲e have not been able to fill that huge gap as of yet.鈥�

The organization is also trying to preserve relationships built over years with young people who learned they could approach Children鈥檚 Aid staff members without judgment and receive medically accurate answers.

鈥淥ur concern is the loss of trusted relationships for our young people,鈥� Braxton said, 鈥渁nd our inability to provide these much-needed, evidence-based, medically accurate services in an era where there鈥檚 a lot of disinformation and mistrust.鈥�

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