In this video episode of Thrive Together, hosts Maya Smith and Jason Lehmbeck speak with Rebecca Ralston, Senior Director of Early Childhood and Preventive Health at Special Olympics, and an alumna of the Thrive Center’s Innovation Hub fellowship. Young Athletes, the early childhood program she has led for ten years, reaches about 350,000 children across more than 170 countries. Roughly 53 million children under five have intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The guiding theme of the conversation: ask first, then build. When the idea for a Young Athletes app met resistance inside the organization, Rebecca’s team went back to the drawing board and ran listening sessions with families, early childhood experts, and health providers. “Let’s not let the app be the end goal, but let’s see what families need, and if the app meets that, then we’ll be able to sort of fit that in.”
With Head Start, they mapped their program against the entire set of Head Start standards. With tribal Head Start programs, they were told not to arrive with something already finished, so they spent years co-building an indigenized Young Athletes. “So instead of just using those foundational motor skills to build to soccer, we’re building to the tribal game.”
The result is a program built for the hardest days. A new diagnosis usually comes with “the list of 300 things you need to start thinking about right now,” much of it behind a waiting list. Rebecca wants one item available tonight: “take a breath, we’re just going to play at home together.” In the program’s evaluation study of almost 6,000 children in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Thailand, one family who had not felt comfortable taking their child outside the home could, after the program, go to the market together. “It’s about that one family and the fact that they can go to the market with their child now and feel comfortable.”
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Interview Excerpt
Jason: Thinking about a parent with a two-year-old and a new diagnosis. If they’re listening in, what do you want them to do leaving this episode, leaving this conversation?
Rebecca: Yeah. So I’ll say two things. My first is I want them to take a breath. I want them to know that everything that they’re feeling right now is valid, that their child is loved and beautiful, and that is the first and most important thing to remember. It’s a journey, and I think that the importance of starting that journey on hope and love is so critical. And to know that they’re a part of this amazing community. The disability community is just a powerful one and when they’re ready to join, we’d love to have them. And while I know there are a lot of next steps, I’d really also encourage the family to join our Young Athletes app and to download our Young Athletes app. Not to see it as another thing to do, but as you mentioned earlier, that it’s a chance to play. And it’s a chance to play with your child at home, to engage their siblings in play at home, and really find that celebration together through play. And to grow together as a family and with your child in really fun and connected ways.
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