With a 2024 grant from the J.W. Couch Foundation, Screen Sanity partnered with Tectonic Video to produce a powerful series of education videos. The result: a nationwide resource helping parents, educators, and kids reclaim balance in a screen-saturated world.
It's a familiar scene in homes across America: a family gathered around the dinner table, faces lit not by candlelight but by the glow of smartphones. Conversations are interrupted by notifications. Eye contact is replaced by scrolling. For millions of parents, this quiet erosion of connection is one of the most urgent challenges of modern parenting — and one of the hardest to name.
That's the world Screen Sanity set out to change.
A Mission Born from Real Conversations
Founded in 2018 in Overland Park, Kansas, Screen Sanity began as a grassroots response to a question parents everywhere were asking: How do we raise kids who are captivated by life, not screens? What started as small living-room conversations among concerned parents has grown into a national movement equipping families, educators, doctors, and community leaders with the tools to navigate digital life with intention.
Co-Founder and Executive Director Tracy Foster and her team understood early on that fear-based messaging wouldn't move the needle. Real change, they believed, would come from informed conversations, practical strategies, and a hopeful vision for what childhood could look like when screens take their proper place.
The Challenge: Reaching More Families
Screen Sanity had the research. They had the resources. They had a growing community of parents hungry for guidance. What they needed was a way to bring their message to life — to translate years of insight into content that could travel, resonate, and spark action far beyond Kansas.
That's where the J.W. Couch Foundation's Wellness pillar came in. In 2024, our foundation funded a project to help Screen Sanity produce a powerful series of education videos, partnering with the award-winning team at Tectonic Video — a studio trusted by some of the most respected nonprofits in the country, with nearly 200 awards and a data-driven approach grounded in their landmark Nonprofit Video Index™.
From Vision to Impact
The collaboration produced more than just polished videos. It produced a launching pad. Screen Sanity's educational kits and digital resources are now reaching audiences they had only dreamed of — parents in suburban neighborhoods, teachers in rural classrooms, pediatricians in busy clinics, and faith communities looking for guidance.
"When people find our resources, they often say, 'This is exactly what I was looking for — how did I not know this existed?!' Together, we've created incredible assets that could reach thousands of people with the resources and hope they've been yearning for."Tracy Foster, Co-Founder & Executive Director
The numbers tell one story, but the conversations tell another. Families are setting boundaries with confidence. Schools are rethinking device policies. Kids are rediscovering boredom, creativity, and the simple joy of being present.
Uniquely Positioned to Lead
What makes Screen Sanity uniquely effective isn't just their research — it's their posture. They don't villainize technology. They don't shame parents. Instead, they meet families where they are, offering grace alongside guidance and equipping the adults in kids' lives to model the healthy habits they hope to instill.
As Tracy often reminds her community: technology has the power to uplift and improve our humanity — but it is critical that we create new cultural norms of digital health if we want our kids to flourish.
Looking Forward
The education videos funded in 2024 are just the beginning. With each new family that discovers Screen Sanity, the movement grows — and so does the possibility of a generation that knows how to put the phone down, look up, and embrace the world in front of them.
At the J.W. Couch Foundation, we're honored to walk alongside organizations like Screen Sanity who are reimagining wellness for the digital age. Because when kids are captivated by life — by nature, by relationships, by their own God-given curiosity — everyone wins.
