Submitted
Cool Careers, a television series that introduces children and teens to high-demand careers in Kansas, will air on all four local Kansas PBS member stations this fall: KCPT (Kansas City), KTWU (Topeka and eastern Kansas), PBS Kansas (Wichita and Central Kansas) and SHPTV (Central and Western Kansas).
“This is a great opportunity to introduce more young Kansans to jobs critical to our state’s future,” said series creator Kristin Brighton, founder of HirePaths and an owner of New Boston Creative Group of Manhattan.
“Sharing our work on PBS will allow our content to reach more children, teens and families.”KTWU General Manager and Executive Director Valerie M.B. VanDerSluis sees the partnership with HirePaths as a chance to provide unique content for younger and teenage audiences, groups local stations typically don’t have a lot of options for.“Being able to offer this audience entertaining, educational and eye-opening content is a win for all of us. I was even educated on the various jobs available in our state that I had not known about previously, so parents will enjoy Cool Careers just as much as their kids,” VanDerSluis said.
The series encourages teens to try out career and technical education courses and other opportunities for free and low-cost career training while in high school. Each episode provides a possible roadmap to gaining the skills and experience required for each featured career.
“Many kids wait until they’re juniors or seniors to think about what they want to do after high school, and by then they’ve lost a lot of opportunities for free training in our public schools,” Brighton said. “Even if early exploration results in them crossing off some options from their possibilities list, that’s great. We want to help them narrow their choices to avoid wasting time and money after high school.”
Since fall 2022, Cool Careers has been distributed on social media, YouTube and HirePaths.com. For use on Kansas PBS stations, the short videos have been combined into 30-minute episodes. The stations also plan to run some of the videos in their original short form between other programming.
Each video features a high-demand career and stars a local young person from Kansas or the Kansas City metro area. Hosts range in age from 11 to 16, and episodes feature businesses in a wide variety of industries and locations across the state.“So far we’ve featured jobs from an agronomist to a wind turbine tech — and in about every possible sector in between,” Brighton said. “We should have a possible career for every kid to consider.”Brighton hopes HirePaths will motivate more young people to stay in Kansas as they enter the workforce. “The state has recognized that we don’t have a jobs problem — we have a people problem. We need more young people to stay in Kansas after high school and enter the workforce with the skills employers need,” Brighton said. “Cool Careers shows the next generation that Kansas offers an array of high-demand, rewarding and well-paying careers.”
Find out when the show will be airing in your area by looking at your local PBS station’s website or visiting hirepaths.com/cool-careers-videos/cool-careers-pbs-schedule.
Cool Careers is part of the HirePaths marketing campaign, launched in 2021 with investments from some of Kansas’ largest employers and industries, including the Kansas Contractors Association, Textron Aviation, Stormont Vail Health, Spirit AeroSystems, Foley Equipment and Garmin. The campaign also has received grants from the Kansas State Department of Education and the Kansas Department of Commerce.
Find out how to get involved in the campaign at HirePaths.com or by reaching out directly to Brighton at [email protected].