For seven consecutive summers, Family and Consumer Sciences Extension has coordinated free weekend camps for military families. With planning leadership from Dr. Kerri Ashurst, Senior Extension Specialist, and Tyrone Atkinson, Program Coordinator, these camps have provided unique opportunities for military families to enjoy time together engaged in a variety of activities.
Three camps were held during the summer of 2015. Camps at Mammoth Cave National Park and Life Adventure Center in Versailles focused on helping families with reintegration following deployment and supporting families who are experiencing the stressors associated with military life. These camps were funded through the Department of Defense. The third camp, funded through a Kentucky SEED grant, was open to military families with young children and was held at UK’s Robinson Forest. Participation totaled 130 family members, including 77 military kids.
Through a summer internship, Cortnie Baity had a unique opportunity to work with the 2015 camps. She described her summer as amazing. Baity, a second year master’s student in the family sciences couples and family therapy program, worked with Ashurst and Atkinson to plan and conduct the camps. Her experiences provided her with a different understanding of military culture and military family-life.
Baity’s first experience of the summer was attending the Operation Immersion Program at the Wendell H. Ford Training Center. She shared, “We ate MRE’s, rode in helicopters with the doors open and experienced daily activities similar to military members.” The Operation Immersion Program is for clinicians and paraprofessionals interested in working with military families.
As the summer camps were held, Baity’s knowledge and understanding increased. She observed a great resilience among the military families and saw the benefit camp participants derived from one-to-one and family time together. The camps also provided her with an opportunity for personal and professional growth and development. She remarked, “One goal for the camps is for participants to increase their self-efficacy. I benefitted from this as well. The activities I was most uncertain about became the ones I enjoyed most. Completing a seven mile canoe trip was a milestone moment for me.”
Baity’s summer internship introduced her to the Cooperative Extension Service. While her goal of one day being a college professor remains, she is now interested in pursuing a position with an Extension appointment. The Tallahassee, Florida native is a teaching assistant in the Department of Family Sciences and the recipient of a Lyman T. Johnson Fellowship at UK. Her graduate research is focused on a series of military teen adventure camps also offered through UK Family and Consumer Sciences Extension. She expects to graduate in May 2016.