mARCH 2011
newsletter from
Change4Life
Dear Change4Life local supporter
First off we want to say a great big thank you for the spectacular
support you have given Change4Life so far. Over the last 12 months,
you’ve had nearly 4 million conversations with people about the
campaign, not to mention the more than 10 million Change4Life
resources you’ve ordered since the campaign launched in 2009. Thanks
to you the Change4Life movement continues to help people change
their lives for the better.
Read on to find out more about Change4Life’s success!
It’s n
bee nt
brillia!
!!
Thank you.
Fantastic feedback
It’s all go with our charity p
artners
Supporting the next generation
Great results for the Great Swapathon
�
Supporters of the month
Healthy Bites
�
Congr
and thatulatio
ank yo ns
u!!!
Fan
tas
tic
fee
db
k
c
a
Things you told us about
the work you do
•� You come from all backgrounds, but are united by
one thing - your personal and professional passion
for what you are doing. You see Change4Life as
a valuable resource in supporting you and your
community
•� You still feel very much involved in the campaign
and strongly believe it is having a positive impact.
And encouragingly, you think the focus on healthier
lifestyles has increased over the last 12 months
•� You feel that Change4Life helps you to talk about
diet and exercise which allows you to do your job
more effectively.
Congratulations and thank you! That’s
the first thing we wanted to say to each
and every one of you. Our research
shows you’ve been working really hard
and your support is paying off, not just
in your local communities but for the
campaign overall.
Over the last year you have had almost
four million individual conversations
with adults and families about
Change4Life. If you break that down,
it works out at roughly 100 people
each, or a staggering 19 hours a
month endorsing and supporting the
campaign.
The feedback families gave
us about the impact of
Change4Life on their lives
•� Parents now have a better understanding of how
important it is to combine diet and activity to
improve the health and wellbeing of their families
•� The families we spoke to recognise that giving their
children too many unhealthy treats isn’t always the
best thing to do. They also recognise encouraging
children to be more active is important
•� Children also have a greater understanding of the
importance of diet and activity. Together with schools,
they are now the key change-makers within homes
•� Families living in challenging circumstances are
less likely to feel they need to change their diet or
increase the amount of physical activity they do as
they are more likely to focus on other aspects of
their life they’d like to change.
•� Families who are making changes are looking for
inspiration, tips and ideas ro help them continue to
do so.
more
fantastic feedback
Celebrate your stories
Keep talking
Your work encouraging adults and families to
make changes for a healthier lifestyle is having
an amazing effect and we have lots of useful
resources for you to help you continue to get
conversations started:
Now you’ve read some of the inspiring feedback
we’ve received, why not add to the clamour of
success by sharing your story with us. It’s really
easy to let us know what you’ve been up to
using our new online survey. Giving feedback
regularly and sharing information and photos of
Change4Life events or activities you’ve run, helps
us recruit and inspire other local supporters – and
it only takes a couple of minutes!
If you’re talking to families, why not start with
Top tips for top kids or you can encourage
families to register for How are the kids so they
can receive their own personalised plan.
If you work mainly with adults Swap it don’t stop
it is a great tool to help you talk about healthier
lifestyles. You can also encourage people to
register with the Your Great Swapathon online
tool for personalised hints and tips of what to
swap.
Top tips for top kids and Swap it don’t stop it are
available to order for free from the DH orderline.
They can also be downloaded from the Partners
and Supporters section of our website.
Complete the survey here
Great results for the Great Swapathon
�
There was a fantastic response to the campaign and you
led the charge – ordering an astonishing 748,000 Great
Swapathon resources in eight weeks!
Amongst the many examples of tremendous support, our
thanks go to:
• SureStart Centres who distributed 360,000
voucher books and How are the kids? surveys
directly to families
• the NHS Confederation who ran a workplace Great
Swapathon initiative to encourage its staff to get
swapping
• primary schools across England who gave out snack
swappers and stickers to encourage hundreds of
thousands of kids to get swapping
• Unison who promoted Change4Life to their social and
home care networks and to Carers UK
• the Youth Sports Trust’s Active Lifestyle coaches
who demonstrated their support by running
Great Swapathon activities and giving out snack
swappers and stickers to around 200,000 children
and their families
Don’t stop the Swap
The Great Swapathon might have finished, but
that doesn’t mean the swaps should too. Please
remember to encourage and support anyone who’s
started swapping their bad habits for good ones, to
keep it up. Or indeed, introduce swaps to new adults
and families you work with by registering them on
the Your Swapathon online tool.
Take a look
• the British Heart Foundation and MEND who mailed
the 77,000 voucher books to their supporters
It’s all go with our charity partners
Need inspiration to get the adults and families you work with up and about and thinking about healthier lifestyles?
Check out the plans of our charity partners. They have lots of ideas designed to get people active – why not
encourage the people you talk to to join in?
Splash for cash
On yer Bike
Swimathon - to support
Marie Curie - 8-10 April
Team Green Britain Bike
Week - 18th - 26th June
Swimathon is the world’s biggest fundraising swim
and it’s a great way for families to get fit and have fun.
Last year over 2,300 people took up swimming for the
event, with nearly 5,000 increasing their swimming
activity to at least once a week as a result of taking part
in Swimathon and raising money for Marie Curie Cancer
Care and the Swimathon Foundation in the process.
Swimathon 2011 takes place at 580 pools across the
UK, 8-10 April
Bike Week is the UK’s biggest mass participation
cycling event. Last year almost half a million people
climbed on their bikes at events across the country.
The aim is to get more people cycling, more often,
and it offers something for everyone – from families,
schools and companies, to seasoned cyclists and those
who have never cycled before.
In 2011, as well as encouraging everyone to get cycling,
Team Green Britain Bike Week is aiming to fix as many
bikes as possible in one week, so dig your bike out of
the shed and get it (and yourself) fit for the summer.
For information on local events visit
Enter now
www.bikeweek.org.uk
Healthy workplaces,
healthy lives
If your role involves looking after the health and
wellbeing of your organisation, then you ay be
interested in the British Heart Foundation’s Health at
Work seminars. Aimed at Health and Wellbeing coordinators, champions or management, the seminars
include interactive and facilitated group discussions
and tips on how you can make a difference in your
workplace. It costs £50 to attend and the next available
dates are:
• Taunton, Tuesday 22nd March 2011
• Leeds, Thursday 24th March 2011
• London, Wednesday 1st June 2011
To find out more, visit the BHF website
Check it out
Walk away with £100 of outdoor gear
�
Walk4Life – now to the end of March
Until the end of March every time you add a walk to the Walk4Life website you have a chance of winning a £100 voucher to
spend at Go Outdoors. It’s as easy as that - simply create a walk any time from today until the end of March 2011 and you
stand a chance of winning. The more walks you add the better chance you have. Why not sign up and add your walk today?
Sign up
Walk to school!
Free your feet – April to July 2011
Free Your Feet is a week long walk to school challenge for
secondary schools, from national charity Living Streets. The
Free Your Feet kit provides everything schools need to get
students walking, including a DVD assembly presentation,
postcards to record walking, railing banners, posters and a
£50 high street voucher prize for one student per school.
Schools who took part last year saw walking levels increase by up to 15%, and it’s a great way to gain or maintain
sustainable, eco or healthy schools status. Register now to get a free kit for your school.
Register now
And in other news for schools...
London 2012 calling
SmallSteps4Life schools
Get Set to exercise
your taste buds!
London 2012 recognise that if you’re taking part in
SmallSteps4Life, you are among the schools that are the most
committed to living the Olympic and Paralympic Values. To
reward you for your commitment, London 2012 wants to
send you a plaque and certificate, and give you the right to
use the London 2012 education logo. They’ll also give you
access to exclusive rewards like tours of the Olympic Park,
visits from athletes, merchandise and much more!
Your students could cook their way
to London 2012 by entering this new
competition from Get Set, the official
London 2012 education programme!
By joining the Get Set network, the London 2012 reward and
recognition scheme, you will also be first in line to secure
tickets to the Games through the London 2012 Ticketshare
initiative! All you have to do is complete the online Get Set
network application form and share your SmallSteps4Life
activity and plans for 2011.
Students with the best meal ideas will be
invited to a final event in London, and the
winners could see their meal on the menu
in the Athletes’ Village at Games time!
Don’t miss out – apply now!
Find out more
Get Set are challenging primary,
secondary and FE college school students
to create healthy meals that could fuel an
athlete to win gold at the Games.
The deadline for entries is Friday
10 June 2011.
Find out more
Supporting the next generation
�
The birth of a baby is always a reason for celebration, but it is also a time when most
mothers look for help from people in the know. There’s so much information out there
it can be really confusing, but Start4Life is designed to make it easy for you to talk to
mothers about how to start their babies on a healthy path.
We have two invaluable Start4Life leaflets aimed at expectant or new mothers
available to order for free from the DH orderline. These can also be downloaded
from the Start4Life section of our website.
Off to the best start
Full of information on why mum’s milk is best,
this leaflet gives mums lots of invaluable tips
on giving their little ones the best possible
nutritional start in life, including what to do after
your baby is born, how to breastfeed, expressing
milk and signs your baby is feeding well.
Download now
Starting Solid foods
The very best care
When your baby is old enough to start making
the change to solid foods, it can be difficult to
know how to go about introducing solid food,
what to feed and how often. This booklet gives
you a stage-by-stage guide to make sure all the
building blocks for the best possible start in life
are in place.
All the information Start4Life gives mothers is
supported across government, and is built on
the very latest research by the World Health
Organisation and is fully aligned with NICE
(National Institute for Health and Clinical
Excellence) guidelines and UNICEF’s Baby Friendly
Initiative.
Download now
Three cheers for the
supporters of the month!
There’s been plenty of local supporter activity
to cheer about this month with some impressive
Great Swapathon initiatives from across the
country. We’ve chosen two imaginative examples
to share with you. Keep up the great work.
1
Active Hastings - Swap your weekend routine for a
day of fun!
Active Hastings ran an all day event called ‘Swap your weekend routine for a day of fun.’ Its aim was to get
families living in Hastings and St.Leonards to take part in some physical activity sessions.
The everyday routines were thrown out in favour of a day of activities that included everything from tumble
gym to cheerleading, swimming to trampolining, ball games and circus skills. There was something for everyone
and all abilities.
Local sports centres and resident Children‘s Centres partnered with Active Hastings to put on the event, which
was more successful than expected. Over the course of the day, they registered over 300 families.
All the activities were free and they even cooked up a batch of free homemade soup and served it along with
the Change4Life recipe cards. To complete the day, every family went home healthier, happier and carrying
Change4Life stickers, Swap It leaflets and Snack Swappers.
The event was promoted via the Active Hastings brochure and The Children’s Centres and Freedom Leisure also
promoted the event.
NHS Worcestershire and the
Great Swapathon
NHS Worcestershire took a very creative approach to
hosting The Great Swapathon and managed to bundle
together lots of activity to reach adults and families across
the county.
As well as offering support, motivation and developing personalised health plans, NHS Worcestershire’s
Change4Life health trainers used the Great Swapathon to offer information and
resources on weight management, physical activity and the services the team provide.
NHS Worcestershire also partnered with the Co-operative to give shoppers the
opportunity to find out their BMI (body mass index) and helped them to make some
shopping basket swaps such as swapping whole milk for skimmed, or white bread for
wholemeal. The health trainer service was also on hand in stores to offer free advice
on healthier lifestyles.
Between Monday 17th and Sunday 30th January health trainers calculated the BMIs of 240 people
and gave healthy lifestyle information to over 1,200 people. Everyone who had their BMI measured
was entered into a prize draw to win one of six healthy swap cool bags, filled with healthy alternatives
to unhealthy breakfasts, snacks and desserts - donated by The Co-operative and based on the
Change4Life snack swapper wheel.
Other activities for the Great Swapathon included: a mobile billboard which drove around the county,
focusing on food outlets at industrial estates. Its aim was to encourage people to think about their
weight and make healthy swaps; a ‘stairs swap’ event held at Crowngate shopping centre encouraging
shoppers to take the stairs instead of the escalators; and an internal bus advertising campaign in the
weeks that followed the main push of the campaign encouraging people to get off the bus a stop early.
Needless to say, there are now many more people not just thinking about their health in Worcestershire,
but actively doing something to improve it.
Great stuff!
Healthy Bites
�
Here’s a round up of other lovely news and useful info, in bite-size chunks:
�
Please keep signing up!
If you’ve been forwarded this email or think any of your
colleagues might want to receive it, you can register on the
Change4Life website and it will be sent straight to your inbox. As
a registered local supporter you can use all of our resources free of
charge and create your own materials using the brand assets.
Register now
Share your stories
Sharing your stories just got even easier! Our new online survey aims to give
you the opportunity to share information and photos of Change4Life events
or activities you ve run and help us to recruit and inspire more campaign
supporters in the process. Why not take a few minutes to tell us what you ve
been up to and complete the survey.
Lets go
Follow Change4Life
on Facebook and
Twitter
You can keep up to date and find out about activities
taking place around England by joining our 40,000
Change4Life Facebook fans (by clicking ‘like’) or
following Change4Life on Twitter.
facebook
twitter
Are your details up to date? Please don’t forget to let us know if your contact details have changed, or are about to
change. We’d love to be able to keep you in the loop on everything we’ve planned in 2011. Send your new details to
c4lpartnerships@dh.gsi.gov.uk and put ‘Details change’ in the subject heading.