the ohio state university – Extension Foundation

Contact the fellows: Jami Dellifield – dellifield.2@osu.edu and Courtney Cuthbertson – cuthbe16@anr.msu.edu

Courtney Cuthbertson

Dr. Courtney Cuthbertson is a Community Behavioral Health Specialist for Michigan State University Extension. Trained as a sociologist of mental health, Dr. Cuthbertson conducts research and provides programming in the areas of mental health and substance use. She earned her BS in Psychology and Sociology, MA in Sociology, and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Illinois.

Before working for MSU Extension, she served as a postdoctoral fellow for the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development on the CAPE Project to better understand and develop ways for communities to use behavioral health data to inform timely interventions. She is a certified instructor for adult and youth Mental Health First Aid, and does volunteer therapy dog work with her Newfoundland, Onyxx, in her spare time.

“I am excited for the opportunity through eXtension and the Impact Collaborative process to work with Extension colleagues around the country to develop more projects and programs for behavioral health. The Cooperative Extension system is well-situated to be responsive to communities facing increasing rates of youth suicide, opioid overdoses, and other behavioral health issues, and I look forward to seeing how Extension can continue impactful work by expanding efforts in this emerging area.”

Jami Dellifield

Jami Dellifield is an Extension Educator, Family and Consumer Sciences, at Ohio State University, Hardin County. Her specialty areas are “Healthy Relationships” and “Healthy People”. She has presented at the local, state, and national levels on Mental Health Awareness. Jami is a co-author of the 2018 Ohio 4-H Project Book, “Your Thoughts Matter, Navigating Mental Health”.

She is currently the co-Leader for the Ohio State University Extension’s Healthy Relationships Team. She is also a graduate of the 2017 North Central Region NELD (National Extension Leadership Development). She is a member of the Live Healthy, Live Well team (including writer/reviewer for the Live Healthy OSU blog and text message challenges), a writer/reviewer for the Live Smart Ohio blog, a member of the Dining with Diabetes team, teaches Successful Co-Parenting and Active Parenting, is a co-superintendent for the Ohio State Fair 4-H Clothing Judging, is a member of the OSU Extension Opioid Work Group, and was a part of the “WeGrill” CYFAR grant team. She was a member of the NCRCRD pilot program for CAPE training and one of the instructors for the Ohio CAPE project.

Jami has BA in Psychology with a minor in Communication from Ohio Northern University and an MA in Christian Education with a specialization in Youth Ministry from the Methodist Theological School of Ohio.

“I am thrilled to work with eXtension and Courtney as we further the efforts around Behavioral Health in the USA and in Extension. Being chosen to do this work and to support others who are working within their communities is a great honor and opportunity. I look forward to hearing about the amazing strides Extension Professionals are making to work with community partners and to help change the way each of us works in Extension locally, regionally, and nationally as our work applies to behavioral health needs.”

Ohio 4-H Youth Development, part of Ohio State University Extension, is excited to present our very own wearable technology… the BioBand! Wearable technologies are electronic fabrics or electronic accessories that are worn. These technologies are new and exciting. We all know of a few of the wearable technologies in the fitness industry such as Fitbit, Nike Fuel, Jawbone, etc. Wearable technologies are forecast to reach 411 million devices by 2020. Wearable technology is heavily marketed towards adults, but children have been getting in on this craze in previous years. These wearable technology companies in the fitness industry have started to cater to children as well. This idea got us excited. Our 4-H-ers are gobbling up the fitness tracker mania as we speak.

Our team thought what could make this better for our 4-H-ers? What could help our kids get more out of this wearable tech craze? We got it. What if we could help kids understand what was actually going on in their fitness tracker? We decided to dive into this project head-on. We wanted to get kids excited not just about the fitness trackers, but the technology and the data that goes into one of them.

Our BioBand kit is compact and very small cost so that kids, parents, and grandparents all have access to buying the kit. We want to make this project accessible to every child. The BioBand kit helps kids encounter and learn from problem-solving activities; it encourages kids to put their budding engineering skills to work as well as encounter new and exciting ideas such as coding. Through BioBands we urge kids to ask the big questions, imagine the possibilities, plan, and then create and improve the future.

Our BioBand kids, after assembling their BioBand will be able to explore why and how tracking their physical activity with the band affects their overall fitness and ultimately how several careers connected to the problem solving encountered throughout the kit.

The project will walk kids through the creation of the BioBands and encourage their imagination to grow while creating a newfound love for the practical STEM. We want to spur a love for engineering and do-it-yourself electronic project for these kids as well as encouraging a love of tinkering and help kids to apply it to a newfound interest in STEM.

To find out more about the BioBand: Dr. Bob Horton will be conducting a webinar about the BioBand on November 7th, 2017. You can join the webinar or watch a recording at https://learn.extension.org/events/3237.