BLOG - STRONG PARTNERSHIPS ARE VITAL TO DRIVING CHANGE

The thrilling summer of sport builds to a crescendo with the Olympics and Paralympics. Seeing the world’s top athletes perform on the greatest stage will inspire many youngsters across the Black Country to play sport and become more active.

That’s great news. But it shouldn’t mask the significant challenges that exist in Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton in tackling the inequalities and barriers preventing people from being active.

With a new government in power, we implore Labour to place more emphasis on sport and physical activity in policy-making and help the sector drive forward transformative change across our communities to ensure everyone is given the opportunity to lead a healthy lifestyle.

As the Sport & Recreation Alliance recently noted, participation in sport and physical activity matters. It unites our nation, binds our communities together, and makes us healthier, happier, more productive and more prosperous. Crucially, every year it saves the NHS £9.5bn by preventing illness and generates £85bn in economic and social value.

In the wake of England reaching the Euro 2024 final, it was heartening to hear the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy, talking about the government’s plans to strengthen support for grassroots football and ensure that all children have access to sports at school. She said it would “support a healthier nation - aligning with the missions to break down barriers to opportunity and build an NHS fit for the future”.

We have similar objectives but recognise that delivering our strategy to unite the Black Country and create active, healthier people and places requires a huge collective effort.

More than half a million residents live within some of the most deprived parts of the country. Active Lives data from Sport England consistently identifies the Black Country as the most inactive Active Partnership area within England. Data released in April shows that 34.8% of adults were classed as inactive - a slight fall in inactivity rates over the last 12 months; the national average is 25.7%.

Flexible approaches

We are finetuning our approaches and desired outcomes to respond to shifting trends and demands in the Black Country, working with partners across the four Local Authorities. And our progressive place-based projects are yielding some early success stories.

But it’s imperative that we unite partners with even greater focus to develop a shared purpose, where we develop our understanding of needs and identify community-based solutions, developing networks and mindsets that are open to learning that can exert influence through evidencing the impact and opportunity of local work.

We know that our activity is only part of the effort and that the support, partnership and actions of individuals and organisations across a breadth of sectors will play the largest part in getting people across the Black Country physically active.

Local place-based partnerships aim to incorporate a focus on smaller hyper local areas, connected assets and strategic infrastructure that have a broader sub-regional impact and present significant opportunity to get people active.

Encouragingly, there are signs that Labour’s approach to improve the health and wellbeing of the nation will see prevention and early intervention take priority. At a local level, the Black Country Integrated Care Partnership is currently developing a strategic framework for prevention and personalisation that presents the opportunity to influence and ensure physical inactivity is embedded. Active Black Country is a founding member of this forum.

Our plans are strongly aligned with the government’s NHS priorities. We are working hand in hand with a wide range of stakeholders and partners, playing a key role in the Black Country Integrated Care System, to help influence policy, strategy, investment and the delivery of interventions to improve the health of our communities.

So while we pause to marvel at the extraordinary sporting endeavours at the Olympics and Paralympics, our mission continues apace in the Black Country to connect and collaborate with partners to transform lives and communities through sport and physical activity.