Register by April 23rd at 5 pm to enjoy flexible learning with live support from Dr. Dave and Erin
Spark
You don’t have time for abstract data. You need to better understand kids. We use storytelling and humor to spark insight into challenging behaviors and illuminate strengths.
Stitch
Information isn’t worth much unless it helps you get through your day. Stitch together insight with practical strategies that build your confidence and expand your toolkit.
Our Focus
Brain Science
Who has time to pore over the research? We do. We make brain science and research in child and adolescent development accessible and understandable.
Screen Time
Kids are growing up in a complex, networked world. You won’t find fear-based or utopian soundbites here. You will get real and relevant tips on what kids need for digital wellbeing.
Connection
Whether we are talking about screen time, resilience, or learning, connection is the active ingredient. So how do we stay connected to our kids? To each other?
Courage
Courage and connection are inextricably linked. You aren’t just raising a kid to grow up. You are raising a kid who knows how to show up.
Our story
Spark & Stitch Institute™ is a Walsh family project. It is the culmination of over thirty years of serving parents and educators by translating research in the fields of child and adolescent development, digital media, and youth thriving. Spark & Stitch Institute was created by Erin Walsh, her parents Dr. Dave and Monica Walsh, and creative collaborators including artist Molly Van Avery. We are committed to sparking greater understanding of why kids need courage and connection to thrive and how to foster it in the digital age. Still curious about where we’ve been and where we are going?
Our Anti-Racism Commitments
We believe…
Spark & Stitch Institute believes that courageous and connected kids confront bias, dismantle white supremacy, and care deeply for others. We know that young people need parents, teachers, and communities that practice up-rooting oppression. We want to equip educators and caregivers with understanding and tools to engage children in developmentally appropriate ways and model empathy, anti-racism and changemaking when it matters most. This work must happen daily in our homes and classrooms and neighborhoods, and it must happen strategically in our institutions and policies.
We acknowledge…
The fields of parent education and child development are not neutral, and never have been. Too often, parent education resources have centered middle class white cultural values as “normal” and caused damage to families that live outside of that limited notion of reality. It is our job to name and repair this history and practice while rooting out the ways those norms still show up in ourselves, in our business, and in our content.
We commit to…
- Donating 5% of sales goes to the Conscious Kid’s General Fund. Learn more about the Conscious Kid and the work they do here.
- Amplifying BIPOC researchers who are doing urgent, valuable, and brilliant work in the field and influencing systems and policies that shape parenting resources and children’s outcomes.
- Citing BIPOC leaders in youth development and parent education and white leaders that explicitly name intersectionality, and help us all work towards liberatory practices.
- Using our networks, audiences, and business to broaden opportunities for BIPOC and/or GLBTQ+ writers, speakers, and trainers who want to partner with us.
- Ensuring that as we grow our family business, our speakers and instructors reflect the demographics of our communities and share our commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppression.
- Creating content that is supportive for families of multiple identities and combing through our offerings to ensure that people can overlay and integrate their spiritual, cultural, and religious wisdom with our content to make it fit for their lived experiences and aspirations.
Our team
Trusted by parents and educators across the country, we have been invited to speak by: