Remembering Dr. Deb Daro

FCI lost a major champion when Deborah Daro Tuggle died, of natural causes in her home in Morrison, Colorado, on August 18, 2025. Deb, as she was known to friends and colleagues, was an original member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Durham Family Initiative—what our founders, Drs. Ken Dodge, Robert Murphy, and Karen O’Donnell, first called the project that we now know as Family Connects International. She had already established her credentials in the child maltreatment prevention world as Director of Research for the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse. She was a nationally recognized scholar and advocate for child-abuse prevention policies and later, for early home-visiting models. Her insight and leadership contributed to the establishment of Healthy Families America, a fellow early childhood home visiting program.

Deb’s vision expanded to include universal mother-infant home visiting, the fundamental principle of FCI. She served on the FCI Board, and more recently was an active member of the Board’s Program Committee. Even as illness began to consume more of her time and energy, she participated in as many online Committee meetings as she could, and she made invaluable contributions to our cause as a member of the Search Committee which recommended that we hire our new CEO, Jade Woodard.

Untold thousands of mothers and infants have benefited from Deb’s work. Ironically, most will never have heard the name Deb Daro. But we have, and we are so grateful.

Jonathan Kotch, MD, MPH
FCI Board Chair

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