From Voice to Action: Supporting Young People To Be Active in Havant

Over 60 people from across the physical activity sector came together in Havant to learn how we can better listen to the voices of local young people and shape physical activity opportunities to suit their wants and needs.

Havant Borough Council and Energise Me collaborated to create a space where anyone, from coaches to policymakers, who works with children and young people could come along to address the inactivity levels in the borough and equip attendees with skills and knowledge to drive change.

The event kicked off a longer collaborative effort as part of an Active Wellbeing Strategy for the local area.

The day started with Head of Insight, Evaluation and Workforce at Energise Me, Sophie Burton, giving an overview of what the data tells us about young people’s activity levels in Havant. The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) recommends 60 minutes or more of physical activity for children and young people. According to Sport England Active Lives data, 53.7% of children and young people in Havant are not meeting CMO guidelines. That’s what people came together to help change.

Havant Borough Council consulted with local residents in Havant as part of the Active Wellbeing Strategy development. They learned some of the barriers for young people include:

• Lack of confidence
• A preference for non-competitive activities
• Don’t enjoy being out in the wet or cold
• A preference to play video games
• Physical health conditions such as asthma

Numbers are great, but it’s important to remember they don’t tell the full story.

Attendees were encouraged to embed evaluation and learning at the start of their physical activity offers rather than attach it at the end. Considering:

• how useful is the information they are collecting?
• who is the intended user?

Children and young people are surveyed by a variety of organisations on a variety of topics, so it’s important to keep things short and sweet. Sophie shared one of her favourite reflection tools to help her decide what information to gather:

• What? (action did you take)
• So what? (does the information tell us)
• What next? (if you use the information we just learnt)

Kelly Bailey, Project Officer at Energise Me, led a session on the principle of youth engagement. Highlighting the differences between engagement, participation, consultation, co-design, and co-production. The discussion emphasised the importance of creating spaces where young people can freely share their opinions and contribute meaningfully. Kelly shared the ‘Engaging Young People: a toolkit’ as a resource to turn to help organisations do this. And attendees got the chance to try out one of the activities – the marmite line!

Kelly leading the marmite line activity.

Stories from the borough were shared and celebrated, one from Leigh Park Boxing Club and another Horizon Leisure Centre.

Listening to participants and building relationships with them emerged as a key theme to engage communities in physical activity opportunities.

This was a specific highlight for one individual who found hearing about the experience of parents and carers very insightful. Ewan Hallet from Motiv8 said, “I think that’s often a perspective you can forget.”

Place Development Lead, Lee, led a standing discussion. Even incorporating some balancing exercises so participants could get active as they shared insights and knowledge!

As well as inspiring attendees to try doing things differently in their roles, they were also given the opportunity to discuss how to create more inclusive and accessible physical activity opportunities.

Everyone left the day having made new connections, learnt something new and feeling ready to help local children and young people to live more active lives.