The past, present, and future of making the world a better place for kids
We celebrate the 25th anniversary of Great Kids’ incorporation with immense gratitude to our founders and partners!
This milestone represents the resilience, passion, and commitment of everyone who contributed to our mission. To create and deliver quality products and services that make the world a better place for kids.
Join us as we look back on our history and share our dreams for the next generation.
The Early Years
In the 1970s and 1980s, the field of home visiting to support parents was coming to life in the U.S, and the GK founders were at the forefront. With a background in social work and a passion for strengthening families, they embarked on a journey that would revolutionize the home-visiting world.
In the 70’s our founders created a demonstration program in Hawaii funded by a grant aimed at preventing child abuse. Parents in this program left the hospital with an important promise – If things at home become too stressful, they could call for help. This offer to assist families with the challenges of parenting was at the heart of this novel child abuse prevention strategy. And it worked. Hawaii became one of the few states that saw a reduction in abuse and neglect cases.
“What made their home visiting model unique is that it was built on preventing child abuse and neglect. That ideology transformed the home visiting industry and made them pioneers,” said Cristina Nealon, Great Kids trainer since 1987.
Our founders, Betsy Dew, Linda Elliot, and Kathy Flanagan, saw a critical gap in early childhood support systems. They knew that preventing child abuse required building secure, nurturing attachment relationships between children and caregivers. This laid the foundation for what would eventually become Great Kids, Inc.
A Pivotal Media Story
This early program in Hawaii was so successful that what started as two pilot sites in Oahu soon grew to seven sites. The program attracted the attention of a researcher at Harvard University. Through that relationship the GK founders were invited to join a meeting of early childhood researchers at Harvard.
Then, on December 17, 1989, The New York Times shared a story that would change the trajectory of home visiting and lead to the formal birth of Great Kids.
The story featured the success of the Hawaii program. Hundreds of attendees joined them for a conference in Hawaii and learned about a new way of supporting families.
The momentum continued to grow, and attendees quickly went back home and began writing grants to fund programs within their own states. As the programs received funding, health and child welfare representatives from almost every state sought a blueprint of the Hawaii program. Due to the demand, the team developed a plan for Training and Technical Assistance and began supporting others to duplicate their efforts. This was the first of the services offered by what would later become Great Kids, Inc.
The Innovation of Conversation Guides
One such organization in the Philippines was the Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation, a nonprofit offering resilience-building programs and partnerships for children, women, and families in Hawaii and the Philippines. With their expertise in program management and effective home visiting training, the Great Kids founders were hired to provide training seminars for the new programs and orphanages.
The program results were remarkable. One study showed that at age 7, children raised in the poorest of the poor homes served by their home visitors since birth were in the top tier of their 3rd-grade class.
In 1997, the pediatrician running the program in the Philippines expressed concern that the home visitors were struggling to transfer what they learned in training to the home visits. “The home visitors needed support with the dialog to know how to talk about important topics with families,” said Cristina Nealon.
The first iteration was more like a lesson plan for visits. But the next iteration was written in “conversation guide” style. While it was not a script, it very clearly provided guidance as to the home visitor’s part of the conversation. This curriculum became the first published curriculum of Great Kids, the Growing Great Kids curriculum, the mainstay of Great Kids’ products.
The Birth of Great Kids, Inc.
By the late 1990s, the demand for Great Kids’ training and curriculum had grown significantly. In 1999, Betsy, Linda, and Kathy officially formed Great Kids, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing high-quality training and resources to home visiting programs across the globe. One of their first challenges was purchasing the rights to their curriculum, which had been developed while they were employed by Kapiʻolani Medical Center. Undeterred, they secured a loan, using their homes as collateral, and Great Kids, Inc. was born.
With that bold step, the organization embarked on its own path, and the results have been nothing short of remarkable. From humble beginnings—boxing up curriculum manuals in a small office and shipping them by hand—Great Kids has grown into a leader in the field, impacting hundreds of thousands of families worldwide.
Expanding Our Reach
Over the next few years, our founders made their first essential partnerships through their training. Healthy Families America (HFA), a home visiting program, adopted our founders’ original training, Parent Survey, and Integrated Strategies. This collaboration dates to the 1990s, and Great Kids continues to partner with many HFA programs today.
Another important partnership that supported the expansion of Great Kids was with Kentucky Hands. Kentucky incorporated the Parent Survey, Integrated Strategies (basic home visitor training), the Growing Great Kids curriculum, and the Great Kids Training and Quality Initiative into their model. Thanks to the remarkable dedication of many professionals in that state and support from their Governor, Kentucky HANDS provided strong evaluation results, helping to build Great Kids’ credibility. We are proud of this continued partnership of over 25 years and the opportunities that came from it.
These partnerships kickstarted the evolution of Great Kids. Programs began to experience positive family outcomes using our tailored training and curriculum. This success supported the growth of the curriculum and ignited new partnerships for years to come.
The Next Generation
We know that change is a constant in our industry. Great Kids has changed over the past 25 years, too. Our products and services have evolved to support our partners. Today, we are an international leader supporting child welfare and early childhood programs.
What has not changed is our purpose.
Since day one, our goal has always been to help strengthen families and assure optimal child development. We want to shape a world where all parents and caregivers become competent in their ability to nurture children today, tomorrow, and for generations to come.
In those early days, our primary focus was home visiting. Today, we are ecstatic to provide products that bridge into new fields. We remain committed to staying relevant and research-based.
Some of the exciting changes over the years include:
- Manuals that are updated consistently and maintain an evidence-based ranking by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, and Office of Head Start.
- Offering standalone products, which allows our services to reach more people than ever before.
- Elevation of products to meet Head Start/Early Head Start standards.
- Expanded offerings to meet the needs of programs focused on substance use disorder.
- Self-paced online professional development courses.
- Great Kids Store to streamline the purchasing process for our partners.
- Flexible training options from in-person to online hybrid and self-study options.
All this innovation and change would not be possible without our team. We have been fortunate to expand our leadership and team significantly over the years. They are the people who put love, research, and excellence into all things Great Kids!
The Future of Great Kids
As Great Kids enters its next quarter century, come join us. Bring us your vision for strengthening relationships and families. Collectively, let us partner to help children feel safe and secure, loved and valued, curious and capable.
To our colleagues at Great Kids and to our partners and friends, thank you for your hard work, dedication, and support, which have allowed us to grow. We will celebrate some of our people, partners, and innovation throughout October this year with events and insights.
As we move forward together, we will stay true to our purpose – with our partners and the families they serve at the center of everything we do.
We look forward to growing the next generation for another 25 years and beyond!
