Whether you’ve been part of Parents as Teachers for years—or are just learning about it now—you have a role to play, and we have content to help amplify your message. Click below to see our digital engagement toolkit.

• Families – Celebrate your story. Share a moment or memory with your parent educator. Post a thank-you video or photo using #ParentsAsTeachersDay.
• Parent Educators & Home Visitors – Lead the celebration. Host a community event, invite a policymaker to shadow your visit, or share a success story from your work.
• Community Leaders – Show up and speak out. Attend a Global Group Connection. Champion early childhood support in your networks and institutions.
• Local Officials & Policymakers – Recognize the impact. Issue a proclamation, visit a program, or spotlight parent educators in your public remarks.
• Partners & Funders – Amplify the message. Share the campaign in your newsletters, social media, and networks. Help expand access to these vital supports.
• Media & Storytellers – Help shift the narrative. Cover a local family’s journey. Profile a home visitor. Highlight the importance of early childhood investment.

Mldred M. Winter, , a public-school educator motivated by a vision of the potential impact that a home/school partnership beginning before birth could have on
children’s development, founded Parents as Teachers in Missouri in the early 1980s.

Born in 1920 and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Mrs. Winter knew that providing hands-on support and effective learning tools during the critical first years of
life is essential for helping parents raise healthy and successful children. With a focus on early childhood development and education along with the role of
parents as a child’s first teachers, the organization Mrs. Winter began has positioned itself as the premier parenting and home visiting program in the nation.

“As we envision the future for Parents as Teachers, we are reminded that as parents shape their children,
so will their children shape the world…” – Mildred Winter

Mrs. Winter forged a legacy of leadership, activism, and commitment to early childhood education. She passed away in 2019 during the Parents as Teachers Annual International Conference, where she was honored as a Trailblazer. She was 98 years old.

As the first director of Early Childhood Education for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), Mrs. Winter played an integral role in the 1981 pilot project New Parents as Teachers (NPAT). Research from this four-year project demonstrated the positive effects of its services to parents and their children under three, and by 1985 a state-wide program, renamed Parents as Teachers, emerged from that work. Mrs. Winter developed training and curriculum for its first parent educators.

In 1987, Mrs. Winter was appointed executive director of the newly established Parents as Teachers National Center. As vital as she considered research and training to be in the field of parent education, she also knew the value of making the impact of Parents as Teachers services known. She shared New Parents as Teachers materials for parents with then-Missouri Gov. Christopher “Kit” Bond, a first-time father, and his wife. In 1987, she testified regarding Parents as Teachers at a congressional hearing. First Lady Hillary Clinton personally invited Mrs. Winter to participate in a 1997 conference that brought together neuroscientists and leaders in
early childhood education.

In Timelines, a DESE publication chronicling the history of Parents as Teachers through 2005, Mrs. Winter wrote that “the Parents as Teachers program can be considered Missouri’s gift to the field of early childhood education,” and Mrs. Winter herself was a gift to parents, children and educators throughout Missouri and the world. Today the program to which she devoted so much of her life currently supports caregivers in every US state, 119 Tribal communities, six other countries, and two U.S. territories. Her legacy continues.