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The Sports club as a health promoting setting
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The Sports club as a health promoting setting
– an example from an alcohol policy intervention
in Swedish football clubs
9th Nordic Health Promotion Research Conference
Susanna Geidne, PhD
Research team for evaluation of NGO's alcohol and drug preventive work.
School of Health and Medical Sciencies, Örebro University, Sweden
Alcohol and sport – an ambiguous relationship
The Sports club as a health promoting setting
A quite new research field
Important setting
It reaches a substantial part of children and youth. In many countries it is the largest leisure-time activity.
It is an informal and voluntary setting that has the potential to be a health promoting setting.
Although there are mixed findings on the positive and negative relationships between sport and different health outcomes.
The Sports club as a health promoting setting
• Youth sports clubs have plentiful opportunities to be or become health promoting settings; however this is not something that happens automatically.
•To be health promoting the sports club needs to be a supportive and healthy environment with activities designed for and adapted to their specific age-groups.
• To become a health promoting setting, a youth sports club needs to take a comprehensive approach to its activities, aims, and purposes.
Geidne, S; Quennerstedt, M & Eriksson, C. (2013). The youth sports club as a health-promoting setting – An integrative review of research. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 41 (3):269-283.
The Sports club as a health promoting setting - actors
Schools Health services Regions/districts Other clubs
Parent coaches
Coaches
Actors
National sports governing bodies
Educational associations
Parentss
Siblings
Youth Board
Communities Research
Sports organisations
Sponsors Regions/Districtss
Other clubs
The Sports club as a health promoting setting – key elements
Cooperation in facilities and people
Cooperation in injury prevention
Regions/districts Other clubs
Education Design Support Education Liberal attitude to multi-sport
Key elements
Support Education Financing Rules Reasonable demands
Education Good decisions Support
Support
Participation Involvement
Priorities Policy Design
Cooperation via networks in the community
Cooperation between research and practitioners
Support
Financing
Reasonable demands Financing Networks
“Communities of practice”
Swedish Football Association (SvFF) ”Goal without alcohol”
• 2005-2008
• SvFF, The Swedish Alcohol Committee, The Swedish temperance organization (IOGT-NTO)
• The aim was to build knowledge and awareness about the preventive effects of football within every football club, as well as a sense of responsibility regarding issues of alcohol.
• 5 clubs per year were to work actively with alcohol issues within their club, for example, by developing a club alcohol policy and action plan that would reach all members of the club, and thereby get everyone to work towards common goals.
Swedish Football Association (SvFF) ”Goal without alcohol”
• The Swedish Alcohol Committee also financed the Research team for evaluation of NGO's alcohol and drug preventive work at Örebro University to work with evaluation of the project.
• Eight (out of ten) football clubs participated in the study, three elite clubs and five youth clubs
• 30 interviews with project leaders, board members, coaches and players were made.
• The football clubs were recruited to the project because they wanted to work with this issue and in some cases already had started working with it, otherwise they were quite different.
Policy work in sports clubs
There is strong support in research that the level of implementation affect program outcomes (Durlak & DuPre, 2008).
Important factors that influence the implementation process.
• Community level factors- research, politics, funding and policy
• Provider characteristics- Perceived needs and benefits, motivation, tradition, knowledgebase
• Innovation characteristics- Does the intervention fit the particular club, is it adaptable
• Organizational capacity- Internal organization, functioning board, volunteers, employees?
• Training and technical assistance factors- Training and support from external actors
Durlak, J.A. and DuPre, E.P. (2008), Implementation matters: a review of research on the influence of implementation on program outcomes and the factors affectingimplementation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 41 (3): 327-50.
Recommendations for successful alcohol policy implementation in sports clubs
• An explicit message
• The policy must fit the club
• Internal policy dissemination
• Alcohol policy as a part of overall policy
• Support
• The ”right” actors
Geidne, S; Quennerstedt, M & Eriksson, C. (2013). The implementation process of alcohol policies in eight different football clubs in Sweden. Health Education, 113 (3):196-215.
Conclusions
Good planning of a policy project is crucial, both when starting
or developing a policy intervention.
If the policy project is well planned, it will have more of an effect
on the sports club’s environment and day-to-day activities.
A policy intervention can if well implemented be a relatively
economical intervention with a long life-span.
Policies can be seen as one part of working as a health
promoting sports club.
