Major sporting events like Olympic and Paralympic or Commonwealth Games often set ambitious targets to get their nation active as a result of hosting. This is a laudable and understandable aim but often this means that the target population is the “low hanging fruit” – those people that both are inspired by the action on the field and, most critically, have the means and motivation to be able to take advantage of the opportunities presented. What’s harder is to reach those people that face the greatest health inequalities through inactivity (who may very well also be inspired by the elite sport on offer).

What the “big numbers” approach is in danger of missing is a deep understanding of what stops people being active and what can be put in place to overcome those barriers at a very practical, person-centred level. In 2015, with Rio on the horizon Spirit set out to test how we could work together with partners to engage the least active in physical activity, and sustain that engagement to show how sports legacy programmes might be framed through a lens of reducing health inequalities rather than hitting big headline targets.

Earlier this week, 9 years after we started developing the model and after 7 and a half years of funded support spreading out across the UK, our partners Activity Alliance released the final impact report. There is a huge amount to celebrate, readers will be left in no doubt that the Get Out Get Active (GOGA) approach works, but there are still challenges in ensuring that this way of working can be mainstreamed. And part of that comes back to the debate about numbers. The topline figure of 160,000 reached is a great achievement – especially against a backdrop of COVID stopping people getting out (let alone getting active!) and the cost of living crisis impacting both leisure facilities and how people spend their leisure time.

For us at Spirit of 2012, it’s never been about the numbers. Indeed, the decision to award the grant in the first place was partly made because Activity Alliance (English Federation of Disability Sport as they were then) projected far fewer numbers than other bidders but showed us a compelling vision and understanding of how the inactive could be reached and engaged in a sustained way. The success of GOGA is about the test-and-learn approach that has enabled local deliverers to work with much smaller numbers of people in an intense and focused way to really get under the skin of the barriers, take them away and allow people to start and sustain their own active journeys. It’s about the Active Together approach that heard disabled people say that they wanted to get active with their friends and families, as well as having high quality specific provision, and have equality of access and provision.

The GOGA framework enabled deliverers in communities across the UK – from Tayside to Haringey, Wiltshire to Armargh, Pembrokeshire to the Lincolnshire coast – to work closely with the communities they knew were facing inequality of access and the organisations that they trust to develop solutions that worked for them. As a result 35,000 participants became more active with 7 in 10 (74%) continuing to be active and maintained their activity levels outside of the GOGA programme. And smaller numbers don’t equate to less value for money with the report showing that for every £1 invested, GOGA has delivered more than £4.60 in social, environmental, and economic value – which stacks up very favourably to other programmes.

Key highlights from the Impact Report include:

  • On average 4 in 10 (44%) are physically inactive when joining GOGA.
  • GOGA has supported 8 in 10 (78%) to do more physical activity.
  • 8 in 10 (81%) state improvements in their mental well-being after taking part in GOGA activities.
  • 6 in 10 (60%) are now more connected within their community.
  • GOGA leads by example with a representative workforce. Almost 3 in 10 (28%) volunteers have a disability.

Spirit of 2012 is hugely proud of the GOGA programme. It has been a big part of our organisational life – and was 20% of our endowment – and it will be strange for us once it is finally closed. We want to thank all the partners that delivered GOGA, particularly Activity Alliance and Wavehill, Disability Sport NI, Disability Sport Wales and Disability Sport Scotland, all the local delivery organisations, our co-funders Sport England and London Marathon Foundation. But special thanks need to go to all the participants that Got Out and Got Active over the last seven and half years. I’ll leave the final word to a GOGA participant from Pembrokeshire who sums up the spirit of the programme….

I can have fun and enjoy my activity every time I attend. This week it wasn’t my legs that were aching – it was my cheeks from smiling

 

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