Leveraging Family and Community Engagement in Whole-School Physical Activity Initiatives (Part 2)

Globally, over 80 percent of adolescents do not accumulate the recommended 60 minutes of mostly moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (PA) per day. Youth who are insufficiently active are at an increased risk for numerous long-term health problems. Schools are a widely recognized setting for early intervention in childhood and adolescence to increase daily PA participation and promote sustained active lifestyles. Evidence-based best practice for PA promotion through schools is “whole-school PA (WSPA),” which can be any approach that maximizes PA resources across the school environment. One aspect of WSPA that has received relatively scant attention from researchers is the role of family and community support as a key lever in youth PA promotion. Schools have close ties to families and communities, but little is known about how best to use family and community resources to boost WSPA and increase its impact. This symposium features leading WSPA research on family and community engagement. Six presentations are included. The first presentation focuses on the “Fit and Healthy” program, which preservice physical education teachers implemented in local elementary schools, highlighting the value of school-university partnerships in WSPA initiatives. In the second presentation, findings are shared from an interview study with K-12 physical education teachers who were asked about the strategies their schools use to promote and engage families in PA programming and the barriers and facilitators to family engagement. An obesity prevention intervention for middle school students – “ProudMe” – is showcased in the third presentation, with results emphasizing that successful implementation depends on effective engagement with community partners and stakeholders. Fourth in the lineup is a presentation of a study on active school travel in which key informants from a school-university partnership were interviewed about their perspectives and beliefs about implementing a Safe Routes to School program. The fifth presentation reports on the results of piloting “HYPE Hawai‘i,” a school-based PA program that integrates Indigenous knowledge and prioritizes family and community engagement. Finally, the sixth presentation introduces participatory research conducted with multiple stakeholders in Ecuador to map factors external, but also connected, to schools and children’s PA. Overall, this symposium offers a preview of the family- and community-focused innovations in WSPA research that are helping to fill a critical gap in evidence-based recommendations for policy and practice.