Parents’ Action for Children Puts Children and Families First

Actor/director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele created the I Am Your Child (IAYC) organization in 1997 to make early childhood development a national priority. A non-profit, non-partisan organization, IAYC began as a national movement to raise public awareness about the importance of early childhood initiatives to get children started on the right path toward realizing their full potential. The purpose of the movement was to show that raiding healthy children would ultimately benefit all Americans.

In the seven years since the program’s inception, IAYC has worked with the White House, Congress, the National Governors Association, and countless state and local officials to promote policies and programs that foster healthy early childhood development. The organization created celebrity-hosted parent education videos, with accompanying booklets, and distributed them to millions of parents and caregivers through cooperative efforts with community organizations, hospitals, childcare centers, government agencies, and private companies. The videos offer scientifically proven suggestions for how to enhance child development. Follow-up surveys of young parents indicate that the materials have significantly changed the attitudes and behaviors of most of the recipients.

Michigan distributed thousands of copies of The First Years Last Forever video to parents statewide during the first two years of the program, as part of the state’s "Read, Educate, and Develop Youth" literacy kit. Pennsylvania created a statewide parent support initiative to offer professional development classes to educators and health professionals. The state established more than 7000 distribution centers for IAYC videos. The parenting videos were also distributed to every baby born in Ohio’s birthing hospitals as part of the state’s "Birth to Three" initiative. Similar partnerships in California, Kentucky, Wyoming, and other states have helped to close the gap between knowledge and practice for both parents and caregivers.

In 2004, I Am Your Child became Parents’ Action for Children, to reflect an expanded mission for the organization. I Am Your Child is dedicated not only to developing parent education materials, but also to fighting for issues such as early education, health care, and high quality and affordable child care for all parents nationwide. The nationwide movement hopes to ensure that governmental policies reflect the group’s concern and commitment to parents and their children by promoting public policies that ensure children have a chance to reach their full potential. The expanded mission of I Am Your Child will provide America’s parents with a united voice to change the political landscape of America and achieve significant results for the 65,000,000 American families that can use their power to change public policy to benefit all American families.

Parents’ Action for Children will still provide educational materials, but their work has grown into a nationwide parents network where families can connect to experts and other parents for support and solutions. Parents’ Action for Children has joined the National Institutes for Health (NIH) to implement a program called Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity & Nutrition (We Can!), a new national education program to help prevent obesity among youth ages 8 to 13. We Can! provides resources and community-based programs for parents, educators, caregivers, and young people that focus on healthy eating and increased physical activity.

For more information about Parents’ Action for Children and to find out how you can participate, visit www.parentsaction.org.