Energetic play is essential for children’s development, to set lifelong positive health behaviours, and curb obesity and chronic disease. Yet only one in ten children aged 3-5 years get the recommended 60 minutes of daily energetic play. Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is an important setting for supporting children’s physical activity. Play Active is an evidence-informed physical activity policy intervention with implementation strategies to enable ECEC services to successfully implement their policy. Play Active is backed by 10 years of research with leading (inter)national research institutions, ECEC providers and peak bodies and organisations working in child physical activity and health.
In 2021-22 a pragmatic trial to test the effectiveness and implementation of Play Active was conducted with 81 ECEC services (646 educators) in Perth, WA. There was a significant increase in the uptake of policy physical activity practices during the 3-month implementation period. There was high awareness of the policy recommendations (90%). Acceptability was high for both educators (83%) and directors (78%) and, fidelity and reach were high for most implementation support strategies (75%-100%).
Play Active supports services to meet the Australian ECEC national standard: “Each child’s health and physical activity is supported and promoted”. Play Active received a further $2million to be scaled up nationally and was launched by the Federal Minister for Early Childhood Education and Youth, the Hon. Dr Anne Aly MP in April 2024. More than 80,000 Australian children from 700 ECEC services across nationally are expected to benefit through improved physical activity and health. A key focus is equitable implementation of Play Active for ECEC services who work with priority population groups. The presentation will include the process for embedding current policy environments and industry practices into research and lessons learned for implementing interventions at scale and working with community and stakeholders.