About SmallSteps4Life
SmallSteps4Life is a fun ‘health challenge’ approach, which aims to help all children and young people, their families and whole-school communities initiate and sustain healthy lifestyle changes.
It aims to help motivate and support children and young people to take small, manageable steps to improve their health and well-being. It encourages an inclusive approach, so that children and young people of all abilities and levels can engage in activities.
SmallSteps4Life involves asking children and young people to choose at least one challenge to maintain for a period of at least four weeks. This should be related to one of three areas:
- healthy eating
- physical activity
- feeling good.
The key principles of SmallSteps4Life
- Small steps lead to big changes
- Young people lead the way
- Collective action is powerful
- Emphasis on having a go
- It’s not about success or failure
- Sharing what you’re doing and celebrating your involvement
- Having fun!
The programme was launched on the site of the 2012 Olympic Games by former Olympic gold medalist rower, James Cracknell, who is seen here with Jonathan Berry and Tony Apicella from ContinYou as well as all the other partners in the programme.
For more information about the programme, please visit the SmallSteps4Life website. If you require any further information about ContinYou’s role please email Helen Baker.
Case study
The Pedometer Challenge took place in November with two groups of approximately 30 young people (plus their form teachers) at a school in Rhondda Cynon Taf. The aim was for the young people to walk as far as they could throughout the challenge period, and was set up as a
competition between the two groups.
The challenge was well received and undertaken by almost everyone in the spirit in which it was intended – with a few obvious stars too! Having a (friendly) competitive spirit between the two groups, and the adults, helped to ensure the success of the challenge.
Evaluation report
This evaluation report includes information from the perspective of the practitioners in the pilot settings about the effectiveness of the ‘how to guide’ and the practitioner training, along with an analysis of the effectiveness of the pilot project for the children and young people who participated.
Children and young people from ten schools participated in the SmallSteps4Life pilot projects. The schools were in two clusters, one in Bournemouth (South West England) and one in Rhondda Cynon Taf (Wales). The challenges ran between mid-October and mid-December. Evaluation work took place in December 2010 and January 2011.
