‘Movement is for everyone’: UK Land-grant Engagement project is educating families to be healthier together

LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 11, 2026) — The University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences (CHS) and the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment (CAFE), in partnership with UK Cooperative Extension and the community, are promoting positive health outcomes for children and families in the Commonwealth through increasing physical movement.

Funded by the UK Office of Land-grant Engagement and CHS Office of Research and Scholarship, the project, “Families Moving Together: Building a curriculum to engage preschool-aged children and their families in physical activity together,” is providing families the knowledge and skills to establish and maintain a physically active lifestyle.

This community-based project, led by Dee Dlugonski, assistant professor in the Department of Health and Clinical Sciences at CHS, in collaboration with Katherine Jury, senior Extension specialist for Family and Consumer Sciences at Martin-Gatton CAFE, is all about bringing parents and kids together.

“Very few programs at the community level are providing what parents need to engage more with their children through movement,” Dlugonski said. “We are designing programming to show families how to move together in fun and easy ways. We want the whole family to be healthy and the children to be ready to learn.”

Jury said this has been an “extraordinary collaboration” and that finding ways to weave this project’s curriculum into the current Extension programming across Kentucky’s 120 counties will help improve the health and well-being of Kentuckians.

“We are whole-life educators,” Jury said. “We are currently training our Extension agents to offer this curriculum in their counties and communities, making movement practical and accessible for the whole family.”

In 2025, funding was announced for multiple Land-grant engagement projects designed to increase university engagement with communities. The goal was to expand collaborative efforts between UK and partners across the Commonwealth while addressing important public needs — highlighting the intersection of agriculture, Extension efforts, health and wellness and more. “Families Moving Together” was one of the nine projects selected.

‘Families Moving Together’ in action

At project inception, “Families Moving Together” had two primary objectives: engaging families and experts from the community in the curriculum development process and evaluating the feasibility and acceptability of the “Families Moving Together” curriculum with parents and caregivers.

Dlugonski and Jury began working together to recruit families to participate in the curriculum development process, sharing their stories and knowledge related to physical activity, followed by observing groups and gathering collective feedback.

Laura Sheffield, associate director of child development at the Community Action Council, helped Dlugonski and Jury provide early childhood education expertise and facilitate engagement with parents and teachers involved in Kentucky Head Start. 

For Sheffield, “Families Moving Together” synergizes with Head Start’s mission of giving young children from at-risk backgrounds and their families the critical life skills they need to succeed in school and beyond.

“This project perfectly aligns because it involves the whole family,” Sheffield said. “When Dee reached out and asked us to be a partner, we knew this could be a fun opportunity to help educate our kids and families in planning healthier goals. This is just another way to have fun play time with your kids.”

Dlugonski and Jury then started piloting the curriculum at several learning sessions over a six-week period with approximately 20 families at the Jessamine County Public Library, the Montgomery County Extension Office and two child care centers in Lexington.

Each session of the curriculum includes a welcome and warm-up creative exercise, a shared group educational activity, moving together and goal setting — all in the same space for both parents and the children.

For Jury, observing the families have so much fun together “doesn’t feel like work at all.”

“This is such a joyful curriculum,” Jury said. “Watching families and children play games and having a social connection with each other is so enjoyable for them and for us. We want families to take what they learned home with them, so they can practice moving together.”

Traci Norwood, site director at The Prep Academy at South Lexington, one of the host sites of “Families Moving Together,” said the participating Head Start families helped remove barriers to physical activity. 

"Parents have a million things on their plates,” said Norwood, who also participated with her kids. “I realized that my excuses were just excuses, and I can do things that create positive habits for my children. It’s all about establishing achievable goals that include movement in your daily routine — doing a steps challenge while brushing your teeth, playing games where you pretend to be an animal or playing a sport, and more.”

Sustaining movement in Kentucky

According to the CDC and the Physical Activity Alliance, approximately 25% of adults and less than a quarter of school-aged children in Kentucky meet the minimum physical activity guidelines.

“Families Moving Together” is a step forward in establishing physical activity behaviors and promoting better communication, connection and healthier habits among family members. This addresses two of the top 15 priorities identified in the recent Extension Community Assessment: reducing youth obesity through exercise and stronger parenting and relationship-building skills.

Dlugonski and Jury are working on building a facilitator’s guide to train community members, along with Extension agents in all 120 counties in Kentucky. In addition, they want to create an online version of the curriculum and bring the “curriculum to life” for everyone in a positive way. 

“Sometimes exercise can have a bad reputation, but everyone is welcome to be a part of ‘Families Moving Together’ no matter where you are on this journey,” Dlugonski said. “Movement is for everyone.”

The “Families Moving Together” research study was originally funded by the UK UNITE Research Priority Area. Community outreach support was provided from the UK HealthCare Healthy Kentucky Initiative.

Learn more about UK Land-grant Engagement resources, projects and initiatives.