Our Aim

GBA's aim is to achieve cultural and system change through collaboration with local networks to secure their support in championing physical activity. Changing the mindsets, processes, cultures, awareness and objectives that exist within both the Physical Activity system and wider systems in order to create a better system.

By applying this approach, local partners will help improve community outcomes by facilitating changes to the mindsets of people who work within the system. This will lead to changes to the structures within the system, which in turn support health, wellbeing and social outcomes for the community. These structures include policies, working practices, resource allocation, planning, processes, funding, targets, inter organisation collaboration, incentives etc. By supporting a change of mindset / decision making by officers that are responsible for parts of these structures, the intention is that high level structures will change and this will lead to improvements in community outcomes.

Background

Over the past decade Sport England (SE) have started to consider how creating change within the physical activity system and other related systems (that affect physical activity levels) could provide a significant contribution to increasing physical activity levels and tackling wider social / health outcomes. This mirrors a growth in this way of thinking across many other fields including the wider public sector. Get Berkshire Active have been on this journey with SE and have recently started to gain greater clarity, capability and capacity to adopt a new way of working that puts system change at the forefront of our approach locally. This places Systems as the first step before considering strategic planning, partnerships, workforce, mindsets, and local – place based - intervention.

The goal of this work is to identify the patterns created by underlying systemic structures and to then change these structures in a way that alters and improves the patterns caused by system issues and therefore outcomes for local people in relation to physical activity