About Us Time creator Kathleen Guy

Kathleen Guy, an author, speaker and consultant on early child development, is the creator and president of a new company called Us Time..

She began her career in the late 1970’s as an organizer and public speaker on international and domestic poverty. Kathleen’s work with the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. in the 1980’s, was pivotal to her career focus on making a difference for children. After marrying a Canadian and moving to Ottawa in the early 1990’s, Guy sought out the leaders in Canada on children’s issues. Her search led her to Dr. Fraser Mustard and the late Dr. Dan Offord, whom she collaborated with for over 15 years.

Through this collaboration, she founded the Healthy Child Development Project, which spearheaded the First Canadian Community Action for Children Conference held in Winnipeg in 1995. Working with researchers such as Dr. Fraser Mustard, Dr. Dan Offord and Dr. Clyde Hertzman, Guy became fascinated with what scientists were finding out about early child development and how to help parents and other caregivers apply this knowledge in simple and practical ways. She published Our Promise to Children, a book that popularized the research on child development, and presented steps that governments, communities and parents could take to make a difference.

Over the years, Guy’s clients have included the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, UNICEF, the Government of Canada, Community Foundations of Canada and the Council for Early Child Development. She also served as Executive Director of the Child Welfare League of Canada, and director of programs serving families in need.

As a dual citizen Guy has traveled extensively in Canada and the United States --providing keynote speeches, media interviews, leadership training and consultations in all Canadian Provinces and in over 30 states. 

Guy’s experience working with a broad spectrum of people (including parents, researchers, politicians, physicians, philanthropists and early childhood educators) gave her the idea to create a new company. “I wanted to create a line of products that are not only based on the best science, but that would capture the imagination and hearts of children and adults alike. The response so far has been truly gratifying -- I love watching young children and parents having fun playing with K.T. Cat.”

Guy admits that her idea took a lot of time, thinking, planning and creating to bring her dream to fruition. “This process did not follow a straight line. But the long journey enabled me to expand and adapt my ideas over time, as I developed an expanding network of experts, parents and early childhood educators.”

The toy is based on Guy’s real-life cat, Kevin. “Kevin loves to learn about eating, primarily. K.T. Cat has much broader horizons!”