Teaching Strategies Acquires Parenting Counts Product Line

February 17, 2012  |    News and Media   |

Dear Friends of Talaris:

We are excited to announce that Teaching Strategies, a dynamic educational publishing company serving the early childhood community, has acquired the Parenting Counts product line, our research-based family of products designed to support parents and caregivers in raising socially and emotionally healthy children. We want to thank everyone who has been part of this remarkable journey. We are thrilled to have found the right organization to continue this important research and significantly expand the national and global distribution of these great products that we spent more than a decade developing.

Our goal for Talaris has always been to help parents and caregivers understand that learning begins at birth, the foundation for lifelong learning and relationships rests on the social and emotional development from birth to five, and the parent-child relationship is the most essential factor in a child’s healthy development. In the early years, our emphasis was funding research at the University of Washington. We created the Center for Mind, Brain and Learning (CMBL), which later became the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS), and made John Gottman’s Bringing Baby Home project possible.

In 2003, we realized that it was vital to put relevant, reliable research in the hands of parents. We developed Parenting Counts, a compilation of resources and materials to help parents and caregivers learn to interact with children in everyday situations. Today, the Parenting Counts product line includes over 140 resources, such as parenting kits, books, videos, handouts, and online material. The best known of those products may be our interactive developmental timeline, which features more than 250 articles and videos on a child’s development from birth to age five, and we are excited the timeline will remain permanently available at ParentingCounts.com website under the leadership of Teaching Strategies.

In addition to resources for parents, Parenting Counts offers tools for early learning professionals, including a new, innovative 20-hour online training program, The Parenting Counts Professional Training Program. The course, which launched this past July, offers state-of-the-art online training focused on the social and emotional development of children from birth to age five. Parenting Counts Professional Training prepares early learning professionals with the information and tools to teach parents and caregivers the skills needed to successfully raise children. The training focuses on four pillars of development, and is composed of 25 modules containing 40 scenarios, 60 videos, and 75 learning activities illustrating concepts and key messages for all learner types.

Those products are now in the exceptionally capable hands of Teaching Strategies, a socially minded for-profit, which brings curriculum, assessment, professional development, and family connection resources to programs serving children from birth through kindergarten. Its mission is to provide the most effective early education resources to support the critical work of early childhood educators. Teaching Strategies will continue to offer the Parenting Counts product line for purchase and plans to work closely with Parenting Counts customers to ensure a seamless transition.

We’re proud of the many ways Talaris has made a difference in the lives of families and young children. After twelve years focused on developing resources for families, we believe this is the right time to partner with a like-minded organization who can take our materials to a much greater scale. We are thrilled that Teaching Strategies is acquiring these amazing parenting materials, as they are the perfect organization to carry out our mission. The Talaris Institute will remain intact and we look forward to the next chapter of our journey. Additionally, the Talaris Conference Center will continue to remain the leading retreat, event and meeting destination in Seattle.

Lastly, we would like to thank our founders, Bruce and Jolene McCaw, whose vision guided our endeavor. It was their tremendous leadership and generosity that allowed us to make a meaningful difference in the lives of thousands of families.

With great appreciation,

Craig W. Stewart
Board President