Introduction
Last Year Tees Valley Sport supported Darlington Football in the Community and Move More Team (Darlington Council) to develop and deliver 'Weight Goals'. This is a football based programme, primarily for men looking to manage their weight and increase their physical activity levels. We worked with the Social Prescribing Health Coach to ensure the activity levels and health / nutrition messaging was the right level. The programme targetted men with a BMI in excess of 30 and / or diagnosed at being at risk of deveoping Type 2 Diabetes.
TVS allocated £500 to underwrite the initial programme.
What happened?
There was good interest and appetite for the activity session, with impressive results in terms of weight loss or weight maintenance. Sessions are a mix of Walking Football, educational input (in a man friendly manner - food swaps, Fake Aways, supporting apps) and a periodic weigh in .
The group of participants quickly developed their own peer support, creating a Watts App group, swapping recipes and giving one another food and activity tips. The session has gone from strength to strength and is now delivered on a break even basis with participants paying £5 per week. Between 20 and 30 men attend each week.
There has been demand from the group and potential new members to establish an evening session. With the same inclusion criteria the evening session will focus more firmly on Diabetes prevention.
I discussed this programme with the Public Health Team and they have been able to add additional support through their weight management resources. Public Health are allocating 28 memberships to a paid for App called 'second nature weight goals'. This offers virtual and real human support with lifestyle management. It also provides each user with a set of scales that sync with the app on the users phone. Public Health have also provided contact with a specialist diabetes practitioner to give some bespoke input to the education programme.
Who was involved?
Barry Thompson (Darlington Football Community Foundation)
Joanne Hennessy (Darlington Public Health Team)
Sean O'Connell (Move More Team)
Lou Morris (Tees Valley Sport)
So?
The value of this development goes beyond the actual delivery of the programme. Though that in it's self is a great opportunity for the men involved and has developed to the point of being a self sustaining model.
The Public Health Team had not previously worked with the Football Club Foundation and were largely unaware of their work. Through this meeting and introduction I was able to create that link. Barry will now be invited to the Suicide prevention forum and, hopefully, other related public heath initiatives.
Because of Barry's other role as Baptist Minister there is scope to better connect the Council and the Faith Groups in Darlington. It is apparent that there has not been any joint work in the past.
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