Great question and we get that one often. The short answer is “yes”. Jack Eckerd transformed his family’s retail drugstore business into one of the leading self-service drugstore chains in the United States, Eckerd Drugs. In 1968, Jack and Ruth Eckerd founded a program which grew to become Eckerd Connects. They envisioned a program to create healthy and successful alternatives to help children turn their lives around. What started as Florida’s first private boys’ wilderness therapy program quickly expanded to include the state’s first outdoor therapeutic program for girls in the southeastern United States.

By 1982, the state of Florida asked Eckerd Connects to operate the state’s first private juvenile justice program. Soon after, Eckerd Connects added a transitional program for youth who successfully completed a residential juvenile justice program to its service offerings. In the last few years we have added workforce development programs across the country.

In 2008, Eckerd Connects was competitively awarded the child welfare contract to operate one of Florida’s largest community-based care Lead Agency located in Pinellas/Pasco counties.  In 2012, Eckerd Connects was selected to operate a second community-based care Lead Agency in Hillsborough, Florida. Combined with its Pinellas/Pasco lead agency, Eckerd Connects operates a child welfare system of care larger than 15 states and the District of Columbia.