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Case Study 2: “The Clare Sports Partnership Health and Fitness programme “
by Theilgaard
CASE STUDY 2
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In recent years the issue of poor physical health, low levels of physical activity, high levels of obesity and the effects of these factors on the mental health of the Irish population in general and in particular on the youth population have become apparent and led to a coordinated public health strategy to change these growing trends. This includes Healthy Ireland Get Ireland Active! The National Physical Activity Plan for Ireland 2016, Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures: the National Policy Framework for Children and Young People (2014-2020) and National Youth Strategy 2015-2020 all of which target the increased participation in sports and physical activity.
The baseline study involved a literature review assisted by our colleagues in the Clare Sports Partnership and meetings with their staff to hear their experiences. Existing individual CYS Sports Programmes were examined through desk research and interviews with individual youth workers.
The main findings were;
• The ESRI Report ‘Keeping them in the Game’ shows a widening socio-economic gap as people progress through adulthood – the less well-off are more likely to drop out from sport as young adults and less likely to take up new activities.
• The Children’s Sports Participation and Physical
Activity (CSPPA) conducted by University of
Limerick, University College Cork and Dublin
City University shows that just 19% of primary school pupils and 12% of post-primary pupils receive the amount of exercise recommended by the Department of Health. One in four children is unfit, overweight or obese and has elevated blood pressure.
• Both studies are agreed that female participation particularly slips as age increases in the teenage years.
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• While the 2014 Pavee Point Factsheet on the
Health of Traveller men maintains that they report less discrimination in the area of sports and do participate in soccer, gaelic football and boxing the same does not appear to be true for traveller women given their feedback to youth workers and earlier studies which maintain over half of travellers never use the exercise facilities available to them.
The fitness course
• The focus was with young women from the Traveller community. Six teenagers started the six week course and four finished it.
• The programme was designed by a Clare Sports Partnership trainer and a Clare Youth Service Youth Worker. It combined aspects of physical fitness, healthy eating and a critical examination of body image and cultural expectations on young women. • Changing the original programme to a modified one worked well for this group as they would not have engaged well with the more formal sports and classroom format of the original.
The outcomes
• One participant has begun participating in PE in school and has increased her movement levels.
• A second young woman is now regularly attending the gym.
• Two participants have cut back on the amount they are smoking as a result of the programme.
• Participants began to show staff various pictures online and asked “is this real of fake”. Previous to this programme they said they have never questioned the validity of such photos.
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• Young people reported not knowing that sun beds cause as much or more skin damage than the sun’s rays. This knowledge has not however led to a decrease to sunbed usage.
The difficulties
• One young person was going through a family crisis and missed the last 3 sessions.
• Two strong personalities dominated the group and probably caused two others to drop out.
The partnership
• The complimentary skills of the sports trainer and the youth worker were key to the success of this approach as was the willingness to compromise in the design of the programme which incorporated elements of pure physical training and developmental youth work.
• The partnership has strengthened between the two organisations with the CYS youth work manager joining the Clare Sports Partnership
Board of Management on the Strategic Planning
Group.
• It was not possible to extend CYS groupwork practices to other sports programmes at this time.
The initial drive behind this short, practical and for both organisations innovative programme came from the involvement of CYS in the COURAGE project and the requirement to find a partner with sporting expertise.
The model used was successful in increasing the participation of young people who otherwise would not have engaged and has led at least in the short term to positive choices in their lives.
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