Family Lives is pleased to announce that we have been awarded £367,624 of National Lottery funding from Sport England to help low income families in Ealing, London, and Havant in Hampshire get active with their children.
Sport England’s Active Lives Survey(1) reveals that only 54% of adults with children on a low income are active, compared to 71% of those in higher income groups. A third of adults on a low income with children are inactive – not doing 30 minutes or more activity a week.
Sport England has dedicated a £40 million National Lottery funding pot to address this by helping families get active together, and Family Lives is one of nine to receive awards in the latest round of investments.
The fund is a key part of Sport England’s focus on helping young people have an enjoyable experience of sport and physical activity so they develop a positive attitude towards being active at an early age and continue being active in later life.
Sport England are funding organisations that help families get active together, because parents and close family members can have a big impact on children’s experiences. As well as giving children direct access to sporting opportunities, Sport England research(2) shows that they are also significant role models in helping their children get active – because how a parent behaves impacts what a child sees as important.
Parents who are active themselves and enjoy it can encourage positive feelings about exercise and its value in their children. Yet many parents lack the skills or confidence to take part in sport with their children as they fear they cannot keep up. For example, if adults don’t know how to swim or lack confidence on a bike, this has a knock-on impact on the activities they feel they can do as a family and how much they encourage children to take part.
Each of the funded projects will work to address this by building adults’ confidence around getting active with their children, and by providing experiences for families that are enjoyable, convenient and low cost.
With this new National Lottery funding, Family Lives will support families along a pathway to regular, sustained physical activity, looking at incorporating activity into daily life and initiating family activities. We will help families to generate motivation and confidence, and to use the excitement and enthusiasms of children as a springboard for the whole family to have fun with activities.
Mike Diaper, Sport England's Executive Director, said:
“Parents have many demands on their time and can lack confidence in how to get active with their children. That’s why Sport England is working hard to make getting active or playing sport with your children an easier choice. It doesn’t matter what people do or how good they are, having fun together is what is important and helps ensure children continue to be active adults.”
About Sport England
Sport England is a public body and invests up to £300 million National Lottery and government money each year in projects and programmes that help people get active and play sport.
It wants everyone in England, regardless of age, background, or level of ability, to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity. That’s why a lot of its work is specifically focused on helping people who do no, or very little, physical activity and groups who are typically less active - like women, disabled people and people on lower incomes.
1 Sport England Active Lives Survey May 2017/18
2 Sport England commissioned-research conducted by The Behavioural Architects 2017