ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Introducing children to potential career paths has become extremely important and thanks to a big collaboration, they will get to learn about just that.
Smoky Hills PBS recently announced a new educational series, ‘Cool Careers,’ which premiered Sept. 15. The series will introduce children and their families to multiple career opportunities available in Kansas. In the show, a crew of real Kansas children will explore various high-demand careers across the state.
“The series is designed to showcase the day-to-day responsibilities of professionals in different fields and inspire kids to consider pursuing similar paths in the future,” a release from Smoky Hills PBS noted. “Targeted for families and kids in grades 4 to 8, ‘Cool Careers’ aims to open young minds to the possibilities that exist within their own communities, helping them understand the skills and education needed to launch a rewarding career.”
The series was produced by HirePaths and will air on all four local Kansas PBS stations, including Smoky Hills PBS. Upcoming episodes include ‘Feed The World’ (air dates: 9/22 at 6:30 p.m., 9/27 at 1 p.m., and 9/29 at 11 a.m.); ‘Healthcare Heroes’ (air dates: 9/29 at 6:30 p.m., 10/4 at 1 p.m., and 10/6 at 11 a.m.); ‘Building Careers’ (air dates: 10/6 at 6:30 p.m., 10/11 at 1 p.m., and 10/13 at 11 a.m.); ‘People and Products on the Move’ (air dates: 10/13 at 6:30 p.m., 10/18 at 1 p.m., and 10/20 at 11 a.m.); ‘Make Things Work!’ (air dates: 10/20 at 6:30 a.m., 10/25 at 1 p.m., and 10/27 at 11 a.m.); and ‘Professions That Put People First’ (air dates: 10/27 at 6:30 p.m., 11/1 at 1 p.m., and 11/3 at 11 a.m.) Kristin Brighton, principal and co-owner of New Boston Creative Group, LLC, said the idea for the series was inspired in part by her children.
“I got the idea way back in 2018 about doing a marketing campaign to better introduce families to all the high-demand careers Kansas will have in the future, and also plant that seed of there being many different pathways children can go through to get the career skills they need to launch a career,” Brighton said. “We also wanted to erase that stigma of how a four-year college degree is the ONLY way to be successful, because there are a lot of other ways to gain career skills for those types of jobs. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed us down some, so we launched this program in February 2021, and then after we launched the program, we received a second grant from the Kansas State Department of Education ESSER funds, which were COVID-19 relief dollars from the federal government. That money allowed us to start the ‘Cool Careers’ videos – before, it was more of a social media/blog digital marketing campaign. We started, in the fall of 2021, releasing these videos, and our most recent set just came out earlier in September. Now that we have a cumulative map of quite a few videos, I reached out to PBS last spring and starting working with KTWU, the PBS affiliate in Topeka, and they helped me connect with all of other PBS affiliates, including Smoky Hills, and they helped us bridge that partnership. We took out short videos, which are about five to 10 minutes long, and we edited them into 30-minute episodes that all surround a particular theme. We’ve also given them the rights to use our shorts that would be able to be plugged into different programming when there’s gaps between content. It’s great to be able to get our content out to families so children can see all of these cool Kansas careers.”
After some time and more thought and planning, the series was ultimately greenlit, Brighton said.
“When we started this project, my own children were 12 and 14, and everything I was hearing about all of these different careers and the workforce shortages being faced throughout the state were through my Chamber of Commerce hat, not my Mom hat,” Brighton said. “I figured if I wasn’t hearing about all of this through the schools or different programs my children were involved in, there was a good possibility other parents also weren’t hearing this information. I wanted to be able to produce content children could enjoy and families could all watch together with the hope of some internal lightbulbs going off and children realizing they don’t necessarily have to leave Kansas to have a successful career. A lot of children have that misconception of the grass being greener in another state, but there are a lot of cool, well-paying and high-demand jobs right in Kansas that need to be filled by young people. As a mom, I would be talking to my children about all of this, and I came to realize there was quite a bit of this information they didn’t know about either. I used my children to help motivate me to hopefully introduce children in Kansas to some different career fields.”
The main goal of the series, Brighton said, is education and exposure.
“We really wanted to focus on jobs children maybe wouldn’t have heard of otherwise. A lot of children know about career fields because their parents or some other relative works there, or maybe a friend’s parent, or whoever,” Brighton said. “There are also currently a lot of high-demand jobs that didn’t exist 20 years ago, so we also wanted to make sure we could introduce children to career fields that were completely new to them. We often listened to what was being discussed at the state level – for example, I heard our lieutenant governor talk about the need for more people to go into cybersecurity, and our first episode is actually about just that. There have also been multiple conversations about the need for more mental health professionals throughout the Kansas, so we knew we wanted to talk about that in an age-appropriate manner, and that’s another episode. The Department of Labor also has a list of jobs that are in high demand, so we also have that as a reference. We also want to be sure and cover a wide range of career fields – we don’t want to just focus on the STEM careers or the arts or agriculture, we want this series to appeal to children who have a wide array of interests. We talk about healthcare, education, and the skilled trades (among others), and in the future, we’ll have episodes about being a Human Resources specialist and IT specialists and some other fields.”
Brighton and Amanda Smith, director of marketing for Smoky Hills PBS, offered encouragement for Kansas children and their families to tune in.
“‘Cool Careers’ is a great chance for young viewers to see awesome careers right here in Kansas, meet the pros doing them, and learn how they could do it too,” Smith said. “Whether you love technology, animals, art, or science, this show will help you discover exciting paths for your future. We hope children get excited about staying in Kansas after college. The series will show that Kansas is home to thriving industries and rewarding opportunities, so kids can see that they don’t have to leave the state to achieve their career goals.”
“This is a great chance for families to sit together for a short time, learn about a career field, and maybe ultimately spark a conversation/interest about the career field they happened to watch,” Brighton added. “We don’t want to pressure our younger viewers or force them to already decide what they want to do, our goal is to plant a seed or two and maybe encourage children to explore what they are/aren’t interested in. This series is for children in 4th through 8th grade, but there are some Career Technical Education courses and programs that are available in high school, so again, we want to maybe plant that seed so they can explore.”
Brighton added there is a lot of excitement about the show officially airing on TV, and said there are already plans and ideas being made for future episodes.
“We’re super excited to have these on TV officially. They’ve been a project for us for the past few years, but when it’s just an online initiative, it’s a little harder – you can pay money to get ads in front of people, but we hope, by having this all showing on PBS, to have people take it a little more seriously and take the extra time to watch,” Brighton said. “And with the air dates and times, we hope a lot of children will stumble upon this series who might not otherwise have come across it. Like I said, this is a great chance for families to come together for a short time and maybe start some conversations with their children about what they do/don’t want to do in the future. We’re already thinking about ideas for future episodes, and there’s a handful of episodes that will actually be airing in February, which we’re really looking forward to. We have a lot of ideas, and if we can continue receiving the grant funding, we can continue making these episodes. And if there’s any company that wants to partner with us, or if someone has an idea for an episode, they are more than welcome to get in touch with me at
