ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Parenting can be extremely tough and soon, Smoky Hills PBS will be launching a new program, “Growing Together,” to help with just that.
Sara Oberle, producer/director of “Growing Together” and Smoky Hills PBS sales underwriting associate, said discussions about the show began a couple years ago.
“Our new show, 'Growing Together,' is intended to be a presentation of evidence-based practices to help with parenting. It was decided we would do three pilots when we were first discussing this idea so we could see how it was received in our viewing area and where it could go from there,” Oberle said. “In order to satisfy different age groups, like caregivers, parents, grandparents, we wanted to have content that reached everyone. The public media audience does tend to be older, but we do also have younger parents engaged with our educational content, especially our PBS Kids programs, so it was important for me to develop something that reached people of all generations. The show really got its start in conversations about two years ago – I'm a former educator, and I've been working for Smoky Hills PBS for about five years, and we hear comments as we travel about different concerns from a parental point of view and all of that. With that in mind, because our mission has always been about education, we see an opportunity here to bring together resources from across the state. There are many different organizations doing a lot of great work all throughout Kansas, so by bringing them together for these conversations, we thought this would be a great opportunity to help more people hear these best practices so they can incorporate them into their parenting. PBS has a very high level of trust with families because of our non-commercial nature and our history of how we approach educational programming, so it's a natural fit for us to do a program like this.”
Ultimately, Oberle said, the show got the green light, which was very exciting.
“The idea had been received pretty well by our staff since we have so many people invested in benefitting families. We also have multiple people on our staff who have experience in education and parents, so there was definitely some strong interest,” Oberle said. “We saw this as an opportunity to serve our viewing area in a meaningful way, so what gave this series the green light was the condition that all of the money had to be raised in advance to make the production happen. We started discussions about two years ago and had wanted to launch the show in 2024, but we didn't quite meet the fundraising threshold then, so we had to push everything back. Through our grantmakers, individual sponsors and business partnerships, we were able to raise the money we needed to fully fund the production before we proceeded with everything. Our regular shows are already built into our budget, so because this was a new endeavor, we needed to have everything funded up front.”
The show will air Tuesdays at 7 p.m. exclusively on Smoky Hills PBS, and rebroadcasts will be available on Sundays at 3:30 p.m., so there will be multiple opportunities for viewers to tune in. Streaming options will also be available on the free PBS app and the Smoky Hills PBS YouTube channel. The show premieres Sept. 9 with a 'Responsive Feeding for Babies' episode, and that will talk about evidence-based best practices for introducing solid food to babies. The Sept. 16 episode, 'Vaping,' will be about vapes and learn what’s helpful in prevention and harm reduction, and the Sept. 23 episode, 'Adulting: Preparing Young People for Adulthood,' will talk about recent research that can help parents equip their children for the current challenges of growing up.
“I'm really looking forward to seeing how the show is received by the public and the opportunity for people to learn something new. I'm excited to hear the feedback of how it helped our viewers and what kinds of doors it opened,” Oberle said. “There's been a lot I've learned in my time at PBS in regard to educational programming and pledge programming, and it's all been extremely helpful. I'm very eager to see how these seeds are going to be scattered to the people. Something else that's interesting about 'Growing Together' is ... some of our more established shows are live shows, meaning there's no post-production work done, but with 'Growing Together,' we did some filming of segments before and have interjected some graphics and other artwork along the way of putting the show together. We want this show to be a springboard for people to learn – maybe they're introduced to a book that will ultimately help them or a parenting Web site or a local resource that could prove useful. We want to invite everyone to watch when the episodes officially premiere, we're really proud of what we've put together, and there are multiple opportunities and methods for the episodes to be viewed.”
Like the station’s other programming, a main goal of the show, Oberle said, is education.
“I hope viewers will find some encouragement and know their parenting journey is not a solo endeavor. There are people in your community who are dealing with the same things you are, and this show gives some empathy and moral support, which is super important for parents,” Oberle said. “I also hope viewers will take advantage of the resources talked about in the show so they can build on the skills they already have, whether it's through new books or a Web site or local resources or whatever intervention is needed. I want parents to know there are multiple tools they can put in their toolboxes.”
And while the show is still a few days away from premiering, Oberle said that has not ended discussions of future episodes.
“We're definitely entertaining that possibility, but there are many factors we have to take into consideration such as the series being received well,” Oberle said. “Depending on the feedback we receive, we could make some adjustments to future seasons in terms of presentation and everything else. There's also the financial aspect that must be considered – that's a major determining factor since Congress recently rescinded our funding in mid-July, and that makes up about half our budget. For our station, that's just a little more than $1 million, and that's not easy to just make up, so we'll have to establish more partnerships and ask some of our individual members to maybe give a little more. We'll also be pursuing new grants and other funding opportunities. We want people to realize just how valuable stations like us are, and for decades, PBS has provided high-quality educational programming free from corporate influence, and we want to continue doing that. We've got experts from all throughout Kansas speaking as guests in the episodes, so the show is overall pretty representative. I'm just really excited for the show to officially premiere, we've put in a lot of great work, and the overall goal is to help educate people, just like we have been for multiple decades now.”
