Success StoryFamily and Consumer Sciences Extension Nutrition, Active Living, and Health Promotion Outreach on television through Family Lifestyles and Farm and Home shows



Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Nutrition, Active Living, and Health Promotion Outreach on television through Family Lifestyles and Farm and Home shows

Author: Lynn Blankenship

Planning Unit: Metcalfe County CES

Major Program: Active Living and Health Promotions General

Plan of Work: Active Living, Health Promotions and Substance Abuse Prevention

Outcome: Long-Term Outcome

The Family Lifestyles television program is broadcast five times weekly, with one prime-time slot, over WPBM channel 31.  WPBM is broadcast over the air on channel 31.1 and can be received with rooftop antenna within a 45-mile radius of the tower, near Barren River Lake State Park.  The signal covers 3571.2 square miles to an estimated population of 313,863.  WPBM is available over the air and by cable television in these Kentucky Counties: Allen, Barren, Butler, Clinton, Cumberland, Edmonson, Green, Larue, Hart, Metcalfe, Monroe, Nelson, Simpson and Warren.  A YouTube channel: SOKY Living, has been created to upload Family Lifestyles episodes onto after they air, for further accessibility.

The Family Lifestyles television program is a local favorite, started by the now retired Allen County FCS Extension Agent more than twenty years ago.   This program was adopted by the Mammoth Cave Area FCS Extension Agents when the former Allen County FCS Agent retired.   The Metcalfe County Extension Agent for FCS Education is the current organizational contact for the program, covering that role during the absence of an FCS Agent in Allen County.  In order to expand guest options, this FCS Agent has piloted a new way of taping Family Lifestyles episodes via Zoom, which has allowed her to feature the University of Kentucky CES, FCS Extension Specialists and the newly rolled out subject matter for the 2022/23 program year.   During the spring 2022 season, this FCS Agent featured the Productivity Skills for Success Curriculum, the Radon Awareness in Kentucky and the Kick Kentucky Cancer/Nutrition During Cancer programs with the corresponding FCS specialists guesting around their specific curriculum series.  This content resulted in six, excellent 27-minute programs.  Four participating FCS specialists had not previously guested on our program and were thereby introduced to our SOKY communities through these appearances. 

 The Farm and Home Show runs Monday – Friday mornings on WBKO, which is an ABC, CW, and FOX Affiliate.  The WBKO signal broadcasts to 16 counties in South Central Kentucky.  Each segment is worth $ 3300 in earned media, for the Cooperative Extension Service.  Once the segments air they are then uploaded to YouTube on CES Warren County and Facebook at Living Well in Warren County.   In response to information requests around the safety of vaping nicotine liquids, the Metcalfe County FCS Extension Agent researched Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (VAPE) safety and indoor environmental/health impacts of second and third-hand smoke accumulation from vaping devices and traditional tobacco products.  Finding that each year in the U.S. the Poison Control hotline receives over 6000 calls related to toxic exposure to liquid nicotine, and that use of nicotine vape devices sky rocketed among high school age users during the COVID pandemic; this FCS Agent created one, twenty-seven-minute Family Lifestyles segment, and three five-minute Farm and Home television segments that aired during April and May 2022, to help educate our viewers about this critical issue.  

 






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