Women in Motion - Telford and Wrekin Community Health Services

"The Women in Motion project has provided opportunities for hard to reach groups to be active in the local community for free.  The participants are now able to attend organised fitness activities where they couldn’t before and access all of the additional benefits such as improved health, well-being, confidence, friendship and a sense of community."

The ‘Women in Motion’ project is a BIG Lottery funded initiative which sits within the Living Well West Midlands portfolio. It is one of 29 innovative health and wellbeing projects running across 14 locations within the West Midlands. The project gives females the opportunity to increase their levels of physical activity either as a participant or by becoming a Community Physical Activity Leader. The project recruits female volunteers and funds them to gain nationally recognised qualifications in various disciplines of sport and fitness. In turn, they then deliver FREE beginners sport / fitness sessions to females in accessible locations in the communities.

Project detailsProject duration: 01 December 2007 - 01 December 2010
Organisation: 
Telford and Wrekin Community Health Services
Project name: 
Women in Motion
AudienceBME, Deprived communities, Young mums and pregnant women, Other (Female carers)
Age group: 
25 - 40
Age group: 
41+
Innovation
The project is unique and innovative as all of the sessions are run by female volunteers which have accessed training and qualifications through the project. We monitor the in-kind support we receive from our volunteers by using a set monetary value designed for the project. This helps us to estimate the actual cost for time that they are giving to the project and identify how cost effective it is to use volunteers. It is estimated that our in-kind support will outweigh the actual financial cost of the project by December 2010. It is also unique in the fact that we offer females the opportunity to attend free sessions.
Recruitment and promotion
The volunteers that have become part of the project are females from the community, who deliver back into the community. This in itself has given community members participating in the sessions a role model and encouragement to lead healthy lifestyles through physical activity. To promote the project we have used posters, leaflets and editorial in newspapers and magazines. Word of mouth continues to be the most powerful marketing tool for the project.
Location
Local
How was your project delivered?Running, tennis, badminton, gym and aerobics, netball
Funding
The Women in Motion project is a 3 year Big Lottery Fund initiative which sits within the Living Well West Midlands portfolio. The project has secured funding for a 3 year period from December 2007 until December 2010.
Partnership
The project has formed very strong partnerships since it began in December 2007. We work closely with our local council who support us with providing cost effective facilities for physical activity sessions, training and events. We have made links with various National Governing Bodies (NGBs) to provide training and support for our volunteers to gain coaching qualifications. The local Shropshire colleges have also played a part in providing various fitness courses for our volunteers. The Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) has helped and supported us to recruit volunteers.
Results
Lessons: 
We would like to gain more knowledge about the coaching qualifications required to lead sports sessions and work more closely with specific NGBs from start. Sports-specific training is very time consuming and is not necessarily suited to short term projects. Individuals need to gain between 9 – 12 months experience as a level 1 coach before obtaining a level 2, which is the requirement from most NGBs for them to lead independently.
Evaluation: 
By providing opportunities to be active in local community settings, for free with crèche facilities included, a number of the participants have found that they are now able to attend organised activities where they couldn’t before and access all of the additional benefits that this affords. These benefits include improved health, well being and confidence, friendship and a sense of community. From February until September 2009 we have had 336 participants attend the sessions. From this, we have a total throughput of 1793. The Women in Motion project recently received the award for Project of the Year at the Telford and Wrekin Sports Advisory Council’s Annual Awards evening. The project was short listed to the final three in the categories of Project of the Year and Health Improvement Through Physical Activity categories at the Energize Awards – the County Sports Partnership awards for Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin. Following our nominations at the CSP Energize Awards, we were put forward to the West Midlands BBC Power of Sport Awards and have recently been informed that we have been short listed to the final three. This highlights the positive impact that the project has made within the borough of Telford and Wrekin and gives recognition to the hard work and dedication of all involved and we were delighted to have received this award.
Themes

Working with hard to reach groups

The overall aim of the project is to increase the number of women taking part in sport and physical activity within target areas of Telford and Wrekin.  We provide sessions that women have identified there is a need for within these areas and actively encourage their return to sport and physical activity which they may have enjoyed previously but may not have done for a while.

Within Telford and Wrekin, it is a specific target for our County Sports Partnership to target women in areas of deprivation. Several of the areas within Telford fall within the top fifth most deprived area in England.

Within these areas, we have a high percentage of BME communities and these are one of our target groups within the project.

Workforce development

The project recruits female volunteers to lead sessions run within it. Our target for recruited volunteers across the lifetime of the project is 40. To date, we have recruited 56 volunteers, with 46 of those having accessed some form of training course with us and 21 are actively leading sessions out in the community at present.

We have given females within the local community an opportunity to increase future employment prospect by funding them to gain nationally recognised qualifications and given them the opportunity to gain leadership skills in the process.

Training to date has included tennis, badminton and netball coaching, walk and jog leaders and gym and circuit training instructors. 

Making sport sociable

We make all of our sessions as fun and interactive as possible. When marketing the project, we continue you to promote the social element of the sessions as this is very important for our audience. All of the sessions are ladies only which encourages participation from a variety of ages and abilities.

Key links: 
Women in Motion - Telford and Wrekin Community Health Services

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