Blog: 'We’re encouraging people to create new habits'
The English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) website features a blog post every Friday through the year.
March's theme is local sports delivery. This week, Chief Executive for Active Cheshire, Anne Boyd, discusses harnessing the local hairdressers, Plato’s words of wisdom and their disability sport programme- Count Me In.
Anne’s blog:
The Ancient Greek philosopher Plato tells us that human behaviour flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. Here in the north of England, we prefer the much simpler proverb - ‘there’s nowt as queer as folk’.
Active Cheshire's aim is to get 50,000 more people, more active, more often, by 2017, for the health and wellbeing their local residents. We use connections and local insight to commission programmes of activity that will enable schools, clubs, leisure operators, businesses, community groups, colleges and universities to sustain and grow participation themselves.
Understanding this is vital for a sector that aims to get more people active on a regular basis. Essentially, we’re encouraging people to create new habits.
Of course that depends on who you’re trying to get active. In the past, moving people from once-a-week to three-times-a-week participation was a challenge in itself, but we were engaging with those who were, crucially, already living an active lifestyle.
Enticing inactive people to regular activity is a different ball game. We then enter the realm of serious behavioural change, for which a ‘programme’ culture is ill-equipped to respond.
Make no mistake, behaviour change is hard work. It involves delving deep into the values, fears, emotions and history of individuals. It requires a new perspective. We need to challenge what we deliver, where and how.
Creating and selling a programme, even if titled ‘for beginners’ is unlikely to do the trick, so engagement, pace and simplicity are key in building confidence. Baby steps count.
We are selling something new to a completely new audience where we have no existing influence. Even worse, they are likely to resist forming a new active habit - after all, they’ve managed to avoid it so far.
At Active Cheshire we start with no assumptions. We ban lycra, any reference to sports-development, and anyone unable to resist offering technical coaching to those who essentially just want to have fun.
A great example is how we have engaged completely inactive mums in Cheshire’s most deprived areas by identifying someone who had regular engagement, influence and trust among our target group. That person was the local hairdresser.
"We have the potential to enhance and extend lives"
With our guidance she launched a competition for mums that wanted to change their lifestyles. Twenty women embarked on the journey, many clinically obese, awaiting bariatric surgery, suffering from depression, carers and generally too busy to focus on themselves.
Meeting in church halls, we determine a pace, learn about small steps we can take to a healthier lifestyle and support each other.
Early results have been astounding, with many achieving over a stone in weight loss, increased activity, improved mental health and energy as a result of dietary changes.
Women have built confidence, and are now asking to try out boxing, rugby and rowing.
This is the same approach adopted for disabled people, and it formed the basis of the Count Me in Strategy in our local area.
We found ourselves repeatedly engaging those who were already active before us but if we are to grow participation among inactive people, we need to talk to them. So this involves hanging out in new places and developing new contacts and partnerships.
We have the potential to enhance and extend lives if we approach things differently. We have learned to leave assumptions, programmes and ‘traditional’ sports development at the door if we are to affect change in the lives of those who are inactive.
