Explore our ongoing research undertakings within our place- and context-based physical activity project.
Ready, Set, Move
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Project information
Ready, Set, Move aims to co-develop, implement, and evaluation whole-school approaches to enhance children’s physical activity, health, and wellbeing. Intervening during the primary school years provides the best chances of developing positive physical activity behaviours that can be sustained through school and beyond.
The project is situated in East Lancashire and involves primary school ‘middle leaders’ with responsibility for whole-school physical activity provision working with the research team to develop school context-specific strategies to increase children’s physical activity. A range of measures including physical activity, motor competence, physical literacy, body size, and mental health are collected to assess the impact of the schools’ strategies.
The project is in partnership with Together an Active Future.
Active Madrassah
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Project team
Project information
This research will examine the impact of a place-based approach to promote physical activity called Active Madrassahs. Madrassahs are Islamic religious settings attended by children and young people from the Muslim community. Through the transmission of Islamic teachings, attendance at Madrassah cultivates a sense of belonging and identity in young Muslims. Despite the perceived positive impact on the cultivation of identity reported in the literature, little is known about the importance of physical activity movement and sport in Madrassahs.
This gap in knowledge coincides with evidence that children and young people of minority ethnic communities in the UK, many of whom are Muslim, engage in less physical activity relative to others. Inequalities in physical activity participation are not only associated with poorer wellbeing and educational performance for children, but also heighten the risk of a range of morbidities later in the life course.
The research will look to explore the barriers and enablers of embedding active learning and physical activity promotion in Madrassahs across the Pennine region. Both the research and the intervention will use the principles of co – production to ensure that cultural and religious sensitivity are embedded throughout. Whilst using mixed methods, the research will mostly draw upon semi – structured interviews to collect rich data from a range of stakeholders active within the workstream. The findings will help practitioners understand vital learning on what has worked well in the workstream, impacting subsequent rounds of policy and practice.
The project is in partnership with Together an Active Future.
Creative Football
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Project team
Project information
The aim of this project is to undertake a collaborative approach with the deliverers of Creative Football to actively involve them in research that is community-driven and generates new knowledge around sustainable solutions for increasing physical activity and mental wellbeing in local communities. Creative Football is an organisation which uses football in a positive way to engage people informally, anchoring football at the heart of relationships to understand and help with wider needs.
The Creative Football team has expertise in people-focused mental health provision and support and includes experiences of being both service users and mental health practitioners. Creative Football has a long-term vision and strategy to embed inclusive practice by promoting system change and behaviours among adults in the Pennine Lancashire areas through social inclusion football-based sessions. By recognising that clinical intervention alone is not enough for individuals, Creative Football seeks to compliment the work of other services for mental health by using football to create an environment that is safe, therapeutic and fun for individuals in the local community. To date there has been no formal research to capture the impact that Creative Football has had on participants, the staff, and other organisations that can benefit from the systems change approach (e.g., health and social carers, mental health nurses).
This project uses a collaborative approach that engages the Creative Football team to develop and collect qualitative data exploring the impact that their work and methods of support and care has on the mental health and physical activity levels of people in Pennine Lancashire.
The project is in partnership with Together an Active Future.