Healthy Active Lifestyle Champions aims to use the power of peer leadership to engage peers from low socio-economic backgrounds in sustainable, non-traditional activity.

This programme aims to drive the confidence and leadership skills of Healthy Lifestyle Champions and empower young activity leaders to lead change for peers in their school environment. The evaluation will involve a range of innovative qualitative and quantitative methodologies to explore participants’ preferences, attitudes, motivations and barriers towards sport and physical activity.

Key Findings

• Across 2018/19 Healthy Active Lifestyle Champions involved 48 schools and trained 128 practitioners
• Student Survey data suggest Healthy Active lifestyle Champions impacts positively on leadership opportunities for young people
• The percentage of Champions reporting to lead or help with activities ‘a lot’ has risen from 43% to 67% across the programme.
• Over three-quarters of Champions say participation in Healthy Active Lifestyle Champions has increased their resilience (78%), communication (80%), empathy (82%), and teamwork (86%)
• The percentage of Activity Participants reporting to have the chance to try new activites ‘a lot’ has increased significantly from 35% to 51% between the first and eighth week of engagement

“Healthy Active Lifestyle Champions gave students ownership and brought physical activity to the forefront of some students’ minds who don’t necessarily look to engage in that” – Practitioner

Date: 2018 – 2019

Client: Youth Sport Trust and Sport England