By Maria Altman, St. Louis Public Radio
St. Louis – The president and CEO of Parents as Teachers plans to leave the organization next year.
Sue Stepleton has led the national non-profit for nine years. She'll join the faculty at Washington University's George Warren Brown School of Social Work.
The program, which began in Missouri in 1981, helps educate parents about early childhood development with in-home visits. It's taken a huge financial hit the past several years, losing about 60 percent of its funding from the state of Missouri since 2008.
Funding decreases had nothing to do with her decision to leave, Stepleton said.
"This has actually been a personal intention for quite a long time, and nationally and internationally Parents as Teachers has never been in a stronger place, so it's actually a really good time to begin working toward a leadership transition," she said.
But Stepleton said she hopes state lawmakers reverse the funding decline as soon as possible.
"For society it couldn't be money better spent, and I really believe the pendulum will swing back in Missouri as soon as the economy gets going again," she said.
Parents as Teachers serves more than 300,000 families in the United States and across the world.