Civitas Initiative Tools for Shaping Children’s Lives Civitas is a national, nonprofit communication group geared to directly benefiting the lives of children by gathering leading-edge research in early childhood development and transforming its content into educational products and services for parents, caregivers, grandparents, pediatricians, nurses and teachers. In this way Civitas helps all adults who take care of children make better decisions on their behalf. Essex Two serves as creative directors for Civitas, shaping the overall positioning and identification issues through new product development as well as producing all educational materials and publications.