Behavioral Health

Adolescent Health Education Initiative

Adolescent Health Education Initiative Children's Care Management Circle of Security Parenting Program Identity & Acceptance Program Health Services for Child Welfare Involved Children & Youth Partnership to Improve Community Health Outcomes School Based Mental Health Services School Response Teams Supportive Housing

The Foundling’s Adolescent Health Education Initiative gives adolescents in foster care, or whose families are in prevention programs, a place where they can become educated on health topics most relevant to them – including preventing adolescent pregnancy and improving sexual health.

Primarily serving the Bronx, the Adolescent Health Education Initiative utilizes two evidence-based models targeting adolescent youth, ages 11-18, who are in foster care or whose families are receiving foster care prevention services. The program focuses on cultivating self-confidence, responsibility, and social skills—all of which are vitally important to reducing adolescent pregnancy and improving sexual health outcomes among young people in our community.

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Success Stories

Robert Sensale

Robert Sensale
Foundling Adoptee

“You couldn’t find two luckier people than my sister and I, that we ended up with my mom and dad,” says Robert. “Jimmy Stewart got the movie, A Wonderful Life, but I got to live it.”

Adopted from The Foundling in 1959, he has kept up a lifelong connection with the organization. Along with his sister, many of his other neighbors and friends growing up had been adopted from The Foundling. And 20 years ago, after seeing a Foundling publication featuring Sister Mary DeSales – the woman who had placed him with his family – he reconnected with her. She remembered Robert and his family, and the two ended up having weekly phone calls. Additionally, Robert and his family would visit with her and the other Sisters of Charity at the retirement home where they lived.

“We all went to The New York Foundling’s 140^th anniversary, and there were a number of women there that were nurses in that era,” Robert says. “And you could see them all looking at us – ‘I wonder if I took care of this child, did I hold this child, did I change his diaper?’ It was a really wonderful bonding experience. And to see Sister for the last years of her life was an absolute blessing.”

Robert currently lives in New Jersey , and works as an attorney for a Wall Street investment bank. With his late wife, he has one biological son and three adopted daughters. “Life is good,” he says.

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