Physical Activity Counselling Toolkit

So I feel a little like blowing my own horn today.
As some of you may know, the Centre here has launched the new Physical Activity Counselling Toolkit.

I can proudly say I headed up this project, and had some fantastic help from my co-workers and from the advisory committee. I encourage you to check out our new toolkit... but also to keep an eye out for our translated versions, likely coming this fall.

The Alberta Centre for Active Living had been approached by various practitioners (e.g., exercise physiologist), requesting a need for resources and tools that would help them do physical activity counseling. So this project came out of a direct need from practitioners.

This was tough, but rewarding project. I was shocked at how much time each resource took to create. We wanted to make sure the content was based on the latest research. Plus we wanted to ensure that the information was written to best promote behaviour change ( this meant I had to brush up on my behaviour change theories- no easy feat).

We also wanted to make sure that each resources was written in very plain language and actually useful to practitioners. To achieve this, it required evaluating the readability of each resources and subsequent drafts. It also meant having the resources evaluated by practitioners and the clients they work with.

So, yes a lot of work. But the feed back we have been getting from across Canada and even around the world (that's right, folks in UK, Australia and South Africa have contacted us), has been outstanding.

This basically shows that resources like these are needed. The sweat, blood and tears that went into these was definitely worth it. Now... we just need to hunt down further funding so we can add to this collection.

I encourage you to check out our toolkit and please feel free to share your comments with me.

Moving little ones. Part 3

Interestingly there has been some international activity on this topic, so I have a short "part three" for you.

The UK just released their physical activity guidelines on for children under 5.
These guidelines recommend that children under 5, who are walking, should be active at least 180 minutes (3 hours) spread throughout their day.

They also provided guidelines for children under 5 who are not walking. For this group the focus seems to be on infants, and floor play time and water based physical activities are encouraged.

So what about Canada?
Well according to CSEP, Canada will have its own guidelines most likely in Spring of 2012.
Though I suspect they will not be much different from what UK has provided. We shall see.

In the mean time, we know the little ones need physical activity... so lets get them moving :)

Moving little ones. Part 2

As promised in my previous blog, I have dedicated this entry to posting about some neat and useful resources that exist.

The good news is, even though we lack specific Canadian guidelines on physical activity for children younger than the age of five, we actually have a plethora of resources out there about getting this age group moving.

First I would encourage you to check out the Canadian Sport for Life (CS4L) website. Part of this movement is to encourage strong physical literacy in younger children, before they even try sports. They have a whole staged devoted to children from 0-6 titled “Active Start”.

The focus of this stage is to simply encourage these kiddies to learn to move their body in different ways and in different places, especially during unstructured play. The goal is to help these children learn to control their body, develop locomotor skill (i.e. rolling, crawling, and catching and rolling a ball). Basically to help lay the foundation for strong physical literacy.

You can also refer to the Active for Life website, which I believe is a dedicated spin-off from CS4L to focus on physical literacy. This website is focused towards parents, but also very useful for those working with children as well. You will find the website fun and easy to use.

Another great resource that is full of ideas is A Hop, Skip and a Jump: Enhancing Physical Literacy. This resource will give you ideas of games and activities to lead kids through. What all these resources emphasis is that with younger children physical activity is all about learning to move their body. So when they are old enough to plays sports, the emphasis should never be on competitiveness but rather on skill development.

All resources encourage a blend of structured (i.e. playing sport) and unstructured (active play which does not adhere to rules, time lines), although most put an emphasis on unstructured play.

Also, all the resources encourage adults to be involved (even during unstructured play), to help provide feedback, to model the physical movement, and to help make the activity enjoyable.

To wrap up, I encourage you to watch this video on Active Play.