President Donald Trump’s administration has rescinded more than $2 million of grant funding intended for a Vermont nonprofit that is working to prevent teen pregnancy — decimating the group’s finances, according to one of its directors.
The Charlotte-based Youth Catalytics has provided training and research to youth services organizations around the country for 35 years. During Barack Obama’s presidency, the group won a five-year federal grant for pregnancy prevention work that began in 2016 with $564,000 in funding. Earlier this month, the Office of Adolescent Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informed the organization that it had terminated the remaining four years of the grant — a loss of about $2.25 million.
“Due to changes in program priorities, it has been determined that it is in the best interest of the federal government to no longer continue funding for the Providing Capacity Building Assistance to OAH Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grantees program,” the July 5 letter read.
The news came out of the blue, said Meagan Downey, Youth Catalytics’ director of special projects. “I’m on my honeymoon in Jamaica, and, on July 5, I get this notice that our funding was being terminated June 30, 2017,” she said.
“We were given no reason,” Downey went on. “The only change that we know of that has occurred are the appointments of some people who have led efforts to discredit and eliminate these programs.”
The cut to the local organization is part of a more sweeping rescission, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting, which found that 81 institutions nationwide will lose a total of more than $200 million in teen pregnancy prevention grants.
Trump has appointed several Health and Human Services officials who have endorsed an abstinence-only approach to pregnancy prevention and resisted sex education that includes birth control counseling. Among the appointees is Valerie Huber, chief of staff to the assistant secretary for health. That office has not responded to a request for comment.
Youth Catalytics, which reported about $1 million in revenue on its 2015 tax filing, was one of five groups whose grants were pulled at the start of July; most organizations were given one more year of funding, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting.*
Through the now-revoked federal grant, the Vermont organization helped entities that run pregnancy prevention programs for vulnerable youth to improve their communications with teens, parents and other stakeholders. They also helped groups with similar missions share their work with one another.
“We’ve been reeling [and] trying to figure out what our rights are, in terms of questioning this decision,” said Downey. Her organization’s lawyer sent a letter Thursday to the Department of Health and Human Services disputing the legality of revoking of the grant solely on the basis of a “change in program priorities.”
In the meantime? “Our leadership and our board is trying to do everything they can to keep staff on as long as they can,” said Downey.
Within the next couple months, staff salaries will be reduced “across the board,” she noted. The money helped pay 85 percent of her own salary.
*Correction, July 21, 2017: An earlier version of this story inaccurately described Youth Catalytics’ work and misstated the number of organizations losing funding.
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The question about the evidence to support the work of non-profits is a challenging one. Most non-profit budgets are dedicating every dollar they can to front line services for families. While this is noble and where we all want the money to go, it also means that efforts to gather data, evaluate and train staff, go unfunded. The non-profit sector absolute NEEDS Youth Catalytics to support the lack of infrastructure that goes unfunded in non-profit agencies and to ensure that services that are being provided are evidence based and high quality. It is also essential to understand that not all evidence based programs work in every setting, being able to be nimble and adapt new innovative and evidence informed practices with efficacy and evaluation are essential to ensuring that people are better off as a result of the work. This decision to defund Youth Catalytics is short sighted and has the potential to derail more than one organization.
~Kimberly-Ann Coe
Thank you for the kind words about Spectrum, Penelope, we appreciate it! It’s hard for small nonprofits to develop quality programs on their own when they are already very busy working on the front lines. This is where an organization like Youth Catalytics makes a huge difference. We at Spectrum think very highly of them and hope they can continue their important work.
The Federal Administration’s decision to precipitously defund evidenced based programs for teen pregnancy prevention is incredibly short sighted but this cut also greatly reduces the efforts to support non-profits across the country to implement pregnancy prevention programming with proven results. Youth Catalytics is one of those organizations that provides the technical assistance including training and evaluation that allows small non-profits to implement new programming to better serve their community. Thank you Seven Days for running this article and I encourage readers to spread the work about these draconian cuts to critical pregnancy prevention programming. Don’t let this go unnoticed by the public!
Catherine Simonson
“Due to changes in program priorities, it has been determined that it is in the best interest of the federal government to no longer continue funding for the Providing Capacity Building Assistance to OAH Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grantees program”
Let’s read between the lines of that statement. Why would an administration who’s top priority for increased spending is the military, and which is actively trying to slash all forms of assistance to the poor and low income families, want to see an increase in teen pregnancy? Surely they know their bogus “Just Say No” policies of sexual abstinence will not work and will result in more teen pregnancies. So why would these so called Pro-Life people, who also advocate for ongoing endless war and death, through both military foreign policy and arms sales across the planet, want to cause an increase in teen pregnancy throughout the US?
There is only one answer that can explain such insanity: Cannon fodder. Incidences of teen pregnancy tend to be higher amongst lower income populations, and the most heavily recruited population for the military are low income people who have no other opportunities. Increasing teen pregnancy will result in an endless supply of cannon fodder for the endless Oil Wars and Water Wars of the future. It is all part of the big picture for the American War Machine, and the chicken hawks and war profiteers who stand to cash in from these policies. It’s all about greed and making money for them. Sociopaths cannot be bothered with such concerns like compassion, empathy, or the well being of children, or teen moms. Programs that help them are just a barrier to kleptocracy.
One more thing to fight him on. And Sessions announced another bad decision/reversal today. We better get those foxes out of the hen-house soon.
#limpdickpotus
Once again shows that Trump is a very bad president and his stupid choices he makes as his priority!! Instead of axing these programs he should be getting rid of some of his billionaire friends and drain the DC swamp so as to speak
Because Abstinence Only education has such an excellent track record. I think you should at least be able to pass a high school history class in your field before you are appointed to a position in the Federal Government. And math. So that you can compare how much more it is going to cost tax payers to take care of pregnant and teen parents.
I may disagree with Trump and his cronies but I don’t disagree with defunding certain nonprofits. I have friends who work for local nonprofits that disseminate ‘information’ and many of them have said their main reason to exist is to justify collecting a paycheck. There are wonderful nonprofits like Spectrum that provide critical services and help their communities, but there are way too many nonprofits that provide ‘information and training’ services of dubious value.
Planned Parenthood needs funding, this is an organization that truly prevents untold millions of teen pregnancies. If “Youth Catalytics” disappeared tomorrow, I doubt there would be a rash of teen pregnancies next year. There is a fundamental problem in this country with nonprofits that don’t perform, and they reduce critical funding for nonprofits that do work and achieve real and positive results.
OMG. And we are only 6 months into this administration. This shocking and meanspirited stripping of funding will result in serious consequences for Vermont youth as well as staff at Youth Catalytics, but is likely a window into what is yet to come over the next 3 1/2 years of the Trump Administration. One has to wonder if the decision to immediately strip all funding rather than provide 1 year’s notice, as was the typical case with these cuts nationally, was based upon Vermont’s political leanings and representation in Washington? We are entering very dark times.