Move With Us

September 2024 marked the conclusion of Phase 1 of the #MoveWithUs campaign, turning the page to a new chapter of this young person-led movement. The campaign’s origins can be traced to a pivotal discussion at the Essex Children’s Partnership board, where Dr William Bird, Active Essex Chair, shared insights that ignited conversations among partners about creating a sense of belonging, safety, and health for children in Essex. Dr Bird relayed how supporting children to engage in physical activity can support with brain development, resilience and reducing chronic stress. The action from the Children’s Partnership Board was to share outcomes of this discussion with Public Health representatives for a view on potential communication campaign in support of these messages.

A children’s campaign was a desire set out by the Essex Children’s Partnership Board, following a conversation with Active Essex Chair, Dr William Bird. After identifying a worrying lack of positive attitudes towards physical activity for children, it was their hope that a campaign would help raise these attitudes and the experiences for young people across Essex. Measurable through the Sport England Active Lives survey, the 5 attitudes to physical activity, as expressed by young people are confidence, competence, knowledge, understanding and enjoyment.

The importance of harnessing youth voice and ensuring children and young people’s voices are heard, is one of the key drivers of the campaign. Everyone’s relationship with physical activity is personal and can change overtime depending on personal circumstances. The ABCD approach has taught Essex of the importance of working with communities, rather than doing to them, and this is a similar approach taken by Move With Us.

Social media has been used throughout the course of the campaign to showcase some great case studies, videos and stories of young people, as well as good practice from locally trusted organisations. The Find Your Active activity finder hosts a number of physical activity opportunities for young people to engage with across the county and has been a key call to action on posts. Each month throughout the course of 2024 we have awarded an individual/group with our #MoveWithUs ‘Move Maker’ award, awarded to a young person/group of young individuals that have inspired other young people to get active.

This year Active Essex set up a TikTok account to utilise for Move With Us content, which will be further developed in 2024. This will include Mascot dances to get involved with, video content from ambassadors and paid ads to engage with new audiences.

To ensure Move With Us continues to be insight led, and develop the campaign using youth voice, an ambassador programme has been created for young people to share their thoughts about developing Move With Us and changing the Essex ecosystems outlook towards the approach to physical activity for young people.

In September we welcomed 11 of our ambassadors to Ninja Warrior in Chelmsford for our first #MoveWithUs Ambassador meet up. During the session, our ambassadors networked, provided us with feedback on the ambassador offer to date and took part in a social media based challenge before getting active and taking on the Ninja Warrior courses. Feedback from the day included that they wanted to hear more from Active Essex about possible opportunities they can get involved in. We acted on the ask for more opportunities and provided our ambassadors with the opportunity to decide who should be crowned our Essex Activity Awards, ‘Young Sports Personality of the Year’.

Active Essex is committed to supporting the next generation of leaders, volunteers and coaches who would like to develop within the Sport and Physical Activity sector and beyond. The Move With Us (MWU) Leaders Academy was set up to offer additional learning and development opportunities for young leaders who are currently doing some fantastic work in supporting children and young people.

The Move With Us Leaders Academy programme offers participants aged 13-16 further volunteering opportunities, recognition for volunteering hours, access to training and qualifications from a range of providers, and the chance to work alongside industry experts to build confidence and enhance their CV’s with a reference and personal statement.