Giving Compass' Take:

• As the Trump Administration attempts to shift the focus of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program towards abstinence-only education, groups using evidence-based methods granted funding under the Obama Administration are filing a class-action lawsuit in response.  

• How can philanthropy support data collection and funding for effective teen pregnancy prevention? How can laws dictate evidence-based policymaking? 

• Learn how the teen birth rate hit a record low following the implementation of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.

The Trump Administration is shifting the focus of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) more toward abstinence education, and groups will have to get onboard if they want to continue receiving financial support from the federal government

For some grantees, these requirements could clash with laws in their states, and with the approaches they have decided are best suited to addressing teen pregnancy rates in their communities.

Grantees like Hennepin County in Minnesota will have to look for other funding options outside the federal government to continue a program it says has reduced teen pregnancy rates by 66 percent since 2008.

“Why would we change the use of such highly effective programs that work well, to go to something that is abstinence-based and that you can find plenty of research that it doesn’t work?” asked Kathleen Wick, program manager for Hennepin County’s teen pregnancy prevention program, called “Better Together Hennepin.”

The administration last year announced that it would end Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants two years earlier than originally planned for 81 grantees, including Hennepin County, arguing that the programs didn’t work.

A class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on April 27th could force the administration to process the applications for the current grantees. So far, three judges have ruled in favor of eight grantees.

But if the court sides with the Trump administration, the grantees would have to comply with the guidelines issued in April if they decided they still wanted to receive TPPP funding.

Read the full article about teen pregnacy prevention funding by Jessie Hellmann at The Hill.