Families

One of the goals of Living Sport is to support positive physical activity experiences for children and young people.  One part of that is to support families to have increased confidence, opportunities and understanding to improve wellbeing through family orientated physical activity.

Physical activity is known to be good for our physical and mental well-being including that of children of all ages as well as being great fun and a great opportunity for quality family time. We know that over half of local children aren’t yet doing 60 minutes of activity each day (which is the level recommended by the Chief Medical Officer for 5-18 year olds).   

Families, especially parents and caregivers can be a really positive force in shaping children’s behaviours and attitudes by:

  • providing support and encouragement
  • sharing their own sport and physical activity passions
  • facilitating access to various opportunities to be active
  • modelling active behaviour by taking part with children

Family Climbing Activity

We know that it can sometimes be difficult for families to start to be active and some people face more barriers. We want to help families, regardless of their backgrounds, own experiences of physical activity or level of ability to be able to enjoy taking part in sport and physical activity whatever that looks like for them.

We work with organisations such as community groups and family support organisations as well as sports organisations and of course, children and families themselves who know their communities best to:

  • support them to find and know how to get involved in existing opportunities
  • make existing opportunities more accessible and inclusive
  • embed positive physical activity opportunities into existing non sports activities and organisations
  • use sport and physical activity to achieve wider aims (such as improved community cohesion, tackling loneliness, addressing poor mental health)
  • develop new ideas and opportunities

Lady with young child

Through Sport England’s Together Fund we’ve been able to support a number of organisations to bring physical activity to families they are working with.

Families Case Studies

If you have ideas you think we can help with please get in touch: anna.oleary@livingsport.co.uk

To find out more about the recommendations for physical activity for children from 0-18 including disabled children please see:

Physical activity for early years: birth to 5 years

Physical activity for children and young people: 5 to 18 years

Physical-activity-for-disabled-children-and-disabled-young-people

For information on some (mostly free) opportunities locally please see: https://www.livingsport.co.uk/families-ways-to-be-active/