All-Wales Strategy for the Well-being of Leaders Working Group
‘All-Wales Strategy for the Well-being of Leaders Working Group’, consists of members across the educational tiers including NAEL, Welsh Government, Estyn and academics. The purpose of the group is to investigate and understand what exists to support the well-being of leaders, to identify gaps and action recommendations and solutions.
Active Healthy Kids – Global Alliance Contribution
The Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance (AHKGA) is a network of researchers and health professionals aiming to improve children and young people’s PA across the world, with an expanding development over time. The AHK-Wales Research Working Group (RWG) is co-ordinated by Swansea University and consists of academics and professionals from across Wales in the fields of sport, play, transport, public health, leisure and education. The overall purpose of the AHK-Wales Report Card is to act as an advocacy tool and provide a lens over PA behaviours and influencing factors of children and young people within Wales. HAPPEN contributed both researchers time and data to producing the latest AHK Report Card.
You can see a summary of the AHK-Wales 2021 Report Card here
Global Collaboration
The HAPPEN team have led a global funding application alongside researchers from Kenyatta University in Kenya, Lagos University in Nigeria and Bahia University in Brazil. The project, HAPPEN-Linx, aims to conduct implementation research focusing on health and wellbeing as an indicator of Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) risk in children aged 10 – 12 years globally.
HAPPEN-Linx objectives are, 1) Implement and promote a systems approach to health and wellbeing which can be used in a number of countries via the HAPPEN Survey, 2) create a dataset of wellbeing, mental health and typical health behaviours (physical activity, sleep, diet and dental health) across Wales, Kenya, Nigeria and Brazil, 3) develop the processes for taking an intervention that works to enable it to be utilised, adapted and adjusted to suit the needs of users within their own context (teachers, parents and children in schools) and 4) evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of HAPPEN-Linx.
HAPPEN-Linx also aims to identify if and how actions contribute to reshaping the system for wellbeing (for example, sharing school reports with local government) and answer calls for a broader conceptualisation of mental health and wellbeing.
Covid-19 Health Literacy Network
HAPPEN is a member of the COVID-19 Health Literacy network, collaborating on a global research study with over 35 countries examining the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on headteachers and senior leaders. The study aims to understand the work-related stress, burnout, wellbeing and school health priorities, comparing data globally across 35 countries. HAPPEN will be publishing a study report sharing the findings for Wales in September 2022.
The rollout of the COVID-19 Health Literacy network study in Wales is supported by the National Academy for Educational Leadership Cymru. HAPPEN will be collaborating with the National Academy over the next academic year with a focus on headteacher wellbeing.
National Collaboration
In the academic year 2021/2022, HAPPEN was asked to evaluate practice from sports development teams across South Wales local authorities to explore how successful tailored interventions are in improving health and wellbeing in primary schools. The Regional Collaboration Project involved Neath and Port Talbot, Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. A report of findings is to follow shortly.