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 builds upon Healthy Active Lifestyle Champions and aims to further enhance participants’ wellbeing, aspirations, leadership and activity levels by empowering young people to lead peer-led sports and activities within their school environment. This evaluation draws upon mixed measures to explore how young people engage with the programme as a peer and as a leader, and how this impacts an individual’s wellbeing and development in and out of school.

Key Findings

• Data from Champion Chats show lockdown restrictions impacted young people’s participation in, and appreciation of, physical activity. Physical activity engagement and attitudes were also influenced by parental engagement and attitudes
• Beyond the pandemic, key barriers to being active reported by young participants include lack of motivation, confidence and time. Key motivators centre around feeling good, being healthy, being outside and being social
• Increased peer leadership, volunteering and advocacy are key outputs for Healthy Lifestyle Champions and central to accessing and engaging young people in low socioeconomic groups
• The amount of volunteering hours accrued by Champions in three months has almost doubled
• Praise for Champions’ enthusiasm, commitment and resilience features strongly across teacher and parent interviews. Teachers note how the pandemic posed numerous challenges, but that Champions rose to these challenges with creative solutions to disruptions in programme planning, delivery and engagement

“This is the most successful health intervention that we run in the school. The staff member delivering is competent and engaged and this rubs off on students. Students enjoy it and gain all the benefits” – Practitioner

Date: 2019-2021

Client: Youth Sport Trust and Sport England