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API celebrates 20 years!

API celebrates 20 years!

In 1994, API began with a mission to bring research and support to parents, with a focus on fostering secure attachment.

Today, API continues that mission because of the grassroots movement reflecting the deep concern for our children, families, and their future. The simple truth is that when we strengthen families, we nurture and fulfill our children's need for trust, respect, and affection, and ultimately provide a lifelong foundation for healthy, enduring relationships.

How we're celebrating!

Marking this occasion, we invite you to consider those who have made 20 years even possible--the visionaries, the researchers and academics considering secure attachment and healthy child development, the founders and the community of supporters that developed around them in the early years, the API Leaders and volunteers preparing every group meeting and outreach, the staff committing their time and expertise to a cause they believe in, the donors--each person-- who when they could, gave to help see API be the alternative parenting voice for a compassionate world.

Together, we will move forward for another 20 years, strengthening the organization so that it is fit to serve and continue the great deal of work that remains. So many families who are confused or hurting because they were not connected to this message of early thriving, and ultimate prevention, still need to be reached. We hope you will join us, and carry the baton for a stretch, each of us join together to do our part to continue to change the practices of parenting in our world.

As part of API’s celebrations, join with us as we:

  • Mark this 20th anniversary in each of our local communities by planting daylillies together.

  • Share stories of how API has made a difference in our families. We are particularly interested in parents with grown children or children who were raised with Attachment Parenting before there was even the term. (Contact Rita Brhel at rita@attachmentparenting.org to learn how to share your story and look forward to upcoming interviews with second-generation AP parents on The Attached Family.com and API’s APtly Said blog this year.)

  • Establish the Reedy Hickey Scholarship Fund for parent applicants dedicating themselves to voluntarily lead groups who cannot afford to pay application fees, leader dues, or support group dues. This Fund honors API founding board member Reedy Hickey and her 20 years of guidance and service.

  • Invite you to the Cherishing Parents, Flourishing Children Symposium on September 27 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, featuring the pioneers, leaders, and up-and-coming thinkers, researchers, and advocates for children and parents.

  • Celebrate AP Month 2014 in October reflecting on the pioneers of AP and their contributions, as well as the next 20 years of sustaining and growing a community that embraces intentional parenting and child wellbeing.

  • Publish a special issue of Attached Family magazine featuring our theme of Cherishing Parents, Flourishing Children, the joint symposia, AP Month 2014, and much more.

  • Invite you to donate $20 or $20 monthly in honor of API's 20th anniversary and in the donation notes tell us why it is supporting API is important to you.