Eckerd Youth Alternatives was a former name of Eckerd Connects, a national nonprofit that provides workforce development, Job Corps training, and children and family services. The organization traces its origin to 1968, when Jack and Ruth Eckerd opened an outdoor therapeutic program for boys in Florida and formed the Jack and Ruth Eckerd Foundation.

Eckerd's legacy timeline says the organization opened E-Nini-Hassee, an outdoor therapeutic program for girls, in 1969; expanded residential services for boys in North Carolina in 1977; and opened its first juvenile justice program in 1982. The timeline states that Eckerd launched juvenile justice after-care services in Florida in 1985 and school-based prevention services in 1993.

The organization officially became Eckerd Youth Alternatives, Inc. in 1998. It later expanded juvenile justice services to Louisiana and Texas, took on child-welfare lead-agency responsibilities in parts of Florida, merged with Caring for Children in 2014, and now operates as Eckerd Connects.