Healthy Active Children Conference 2022

On this page you'll find a collection of resources, recordings and links from this year's Healthy Active Children Conference. You will see the page is categorised by the themes of each of the days.

Catch up on Day 1 of the conference which set the context for the week. We were joined by Andrew Liney from Sport England to discuss Uniting the Movement and how the power of collaboration of many organisations will be critical to implementing their plan.

You can find his presentation below.

We then heard from Scott Hartley at Press Red who crunched the Oxfordshire specific landscape for us and what trends can be identified across our own county.

You can review his slides below.

Ciara and Jacob who kindly hosted the session gave us insight into the views of young people and what they saw value in when engaging in physical activity.

The full recording of the session can be found here.

We were also lucky enough to be joined by an expert panel consisting of Emma Seymour from Haktive, Seun Oshinaike from Street Tag, Emma Anderson from The Oxford Hub and Harry Baker from Cherwell District Council and an Active Ambassador.

The recording of their discussion can be found here.

On day 2 our focus turned to Mental Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People. Recent data from the OxWell survey has highlighted that the pandemic has significantly impacted young people's mental health and so we were very keen to give some context on this topic but also highlight some of the really positive work taking place across the county that we can learn from.

In the first session we were joined by Harry Baker again, who spoke to us about how his programme with Cherwell District Council has had a positive impact with children across North Oxfordshire.

You can watch the recording of that session here.

In the afternoon session we were joined by Sport in Mind to talk us through their approach, resources and the power of engaging families in physical activity together to tackle mental health. They were partnered by Charlotta and Shivani representing Teen Yoga in Schools and Teen Yoga Foundation as they talked to us about the power Yoga can have in school children, specifically with its effects on mental health, empowerment and athletic performance. They talk breaking the stigma around yoga, even for boys and the success they have had in schools across the country.

You can watch this session back here.

Despite girl's activity levels experiencing a small increase from the latest Active Lives data, this is still a high priority area for us as a partnership. We think we need to capitalise on this positive momentum and focus our energies into ensuring this growth can continue across this historically inactive group of children.

We were extremely lucky to be joined by Tanya from Women in Sport for a comprehensive "Reframing of Sport for Teenage Girls" Session.

You can catch the full recording here.

Our very own Active Ambassador Miranda was keen to share her thoughts and perspective as a gymnastics coach working with children and young people. Her unique insight sets the scene perfectly before we heard from Georgina and Claire from Studio You. It's a free resource which schools are encouraged to utilise to make their offering for girls in curriculum PE more engaging for less active teenage girls. You can explore the Studio you resource here.

Be sure to catch up on the full session recording here.

To close the day on girls participation, we were joined by Dean Woodham from the North Oxfordshire School Sports Partnership and Active Oxfordshire Trustee. He spoke to the group around the approach taken to Girls Football across Oxfordshire and how we can replicate a strategic approach to increasing participation in other areas across the country.

His session slides can be found below and the full recording is available here.

Following this weeks sessions focusing on girl's participation we are keen to keep the conversation going. Find out more about our Build Back Fairer Series of events and sign up to the next one.

On the day 4 of the conference, our focus was around Special Educational Needs and Disability. We welcome Brigitte from the Windrush Bike Project to talk us through what they have managed to establish and grow in Witney. She also talked to us about the reality of the reality of the challenges they have faced, and what we should focus on to replicate this is other areas of the county.

You can find the full session recording here.

The final session to close out our week was focused on how we can support and create environments for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. We were joined by Nicola from Activity Alliance to delve deeper into the context around participation levels and understanding why they are like they are. This was followed up with our very own Active Ambassador Phoebe who showcased some of the great work that is taking place at Summertown Warriors.

Nicola's slides are provided below if you want to have a closer look.

You can watch the full recording here.