Someone in your organization knows how it all works. We make sure the next person does too.
And They Grew helps care organizations preserve the wisdom of their most experienced people — and use it to grow the leaders coming next. We build the systems, the mentorship, and the human connection that turn every transition into a step forward instead of a setback.
THE COST
When one person leaves, everything changes.
Processes stall. Institutional knowledge disappears. New leaders rebuild what already existed. The team absorbs the strain — again.
Most care organizations don't fail because people don't care. They fail because critical knowledge lives in people's heads — and when those people retire, burn out, or move on, it leaves with them. When a longtime leader retires, decades of judgment can walk out the door in a single day.
The cost is bigger than most leaders realize. Replacing a single experienced employee can cost between half and twice their annual salary — and in skilled care roles, far more. But the deepest loss never shows up on an invoice: the judgment, relationships, and institutional knowledge that walk out the door and don't come back.
The cost isn't just financial. It's the exhaustion of starting over, season after season, year after year.
WHAT WE DO
We preserve what your experienced people know - and grow the leaders who come next.
Every organization we serve is really doing two things at once: honoring the people who carry decades of hard-won wisdom and preparing the people who will carry it next. We do both. First, we see clearly what you're facing — the turnover, the looming retirement, the new leader learning under pressure. Then we build the systems and connections that move that wisdom from the people who hold it to the people who need it. And we leave your organization able to keep growing its own — so each transition makes you stronger instead of sending you back to the beginning.
The person leaving is treated as the source, not the problem. That is where the work starts, and it is why experienced leaders tell us things they have never told anyone at work.
That movement is our PEN™ framework: we Affirm what your experienced people know, Affiliate that knowledge to the leaders coming next, and Accelerate it into systems that let your organization grow its own people for good. What you're left with is clarity about what you were at risk of losing, the capability to carry it forward, and a team that is stronger and more connected than before.
WHERE TO START
Start with the Diagnostic.
Knowledge Continuity Diagnostic™ — A focused 3-4 week assessment that identifies where critical knowledge is concentrated, what would be hardest to replace, and where a workforce transition could create operational disruption — with a 90-day action plan for what to protect first. Investment: $10,000.
Also available, once we know what you need:
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A 10-week program for the leader your organization is counting on next. Organizations sponsor a seat for an emerging or newly promoted director, who builds the continuity systems your program needs — alongside peers who are carrying the same weight. Investment: $6,500 per sponsored seat.
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For multi-site operators and larger organizations: knowledge preservation architecture, knowledge-transfer systems, and continuity planning for high-risk roles and workforce transitions. Investment: $25,000–$75,000+.
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Meaningful, sustainable onboarding and development for the leaders coming next — mentorship, retention, and succession strategy that connects experienced wisdom to rising talent. Designed so new leaders step in supported, not stranded. OSSE-approved professional learning available for early childhood programs. Investment: $2,500–$5,000.
This work is for organizations that are tired of starting over.
And They Grew is built for the care economy, and we are beginning where our experience is deepest: early childhood. Our current work focuses on multi-site early childhood organizations, Head Start and Early Head Start programs, nonprofit early learning providers, and other publicly funded or multi-program organizations.
This work is especially relevant when an experienced director or executive is preparing to leave, leadership has recently changed, one person has become the unofficial source for how everything works, or multiple sites depend on knowledge held by a few people.
As we build evidence and methodology, this work is designed to extend into healthcare, senior living, and adjacent care organizations. We are building deliberately, not broadly.
If losing one experienced person would force your organization to relearn something important, there is a continuity risk worth examining.
Systems that strengthen. Wisdom that Scales.
And They Grew was hidden in my father’s name before any of us heard it.
He died before we knew the full story of how he got that name. Years later, my husband heard what the rest of us never had — the sound of it carried "And They Grew" inside. A name about growth had been there all along, hidden in plain sound, waiting for someone to hear it.
That is what we do now: help organizations hear what their people know, preserve what matters, and prepare others to pass it forward.
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And They Grew was hidden in my father’s name before any of us heard it.
He died before we knew the full story of how he got that name. Years later, my husband heard what the rest of us never had — the sound of it carried "And They Grew" inside. A name about growth had been there all along, hidden in plain sound, waiting for someone to hear it.
That is what we do now: help organizations hear what their people know, preserve what matters, and prepare others to pass it forward.
Most of what matters is like that — held quietly in people, waiting to be heard before it is lost.
My mother taught me that first. Widowed at 28 with three children under nine, she held our family together by herself while caring for the young and the aging — with no system to share the load and no one who had carried the same weight to guide her. Responsibility that heavy, held alone, wears anyone down. What she needed wasn't a resource on a list, but people beside her who had carried it too.
I've spent twenty-four years inside care organizations, and I've watched the same story repeat everywhere — experienced leaders holding entire programs together the way my mother held our family: unsupported, unseen, and carrying knowledge no manual had captured. When they burn out, retire, or transition, they take more than their job title with them. They take history, judgment, relationships, and the quiet knowledge that makes the work possible.
I felt that weight myself. And somewhere in those years, I stopped wishing someone would build what was missing and decided to build it myself.
Isolation is not the end of the story.
My grandmother taught me, as a child, that real change comes from a series of slight corrections — small adjustments that compound over time. You don't have to move mountains to change things.
When I graduated college, my grandfather gave me a poem he wrote about what happens when people stop orbiting by themselves and finally connect — "merging, a newness of life, another purpose."
Between them, my family taught me the whole of it — my mother showed me what's at stake, my grandmother how change happens, my grandfather why connection matters. Together, the three are how we work: small, intentional corrections that draw isolated people back into connection — because connection is what turns separate strengths into something that stands.
The people who hold care organizations together deserve more than to do it by themselves. What they know should be honored, organized, shared, and passed on — so the next person doesn't start from scratch, and no one keeping it all together has to do it alone.
That is why And They Grew exists. We are built for the care economy — the places where knowledge is deeply human, operationally critical, and too easily lost — and we begin where my experience is deepest: early childhood. We build the systems and connections that preserve what matters and prepare the people who come next.
— Julie Williams, Founder & Principal Consultant
If your organization is facing transition — turnover, a coming retirement, a new leader who needs support, or the quiet loss of institutional knowledge, let's talk.
Or call 240-633-9192 · Email: wisdom@andtheygrew.com