Creating Healthy Places: a whole system approach to food and active living.

Abstract

The places and settings that we encounter on a daily basis are frequently contradictory, supporting us to eat well and stay active in one moment, and undermining our ability to do so the next. Think of the leisure centre whose vending machines are stocked with sweets and crisps; the child cycling to school, passing a dozen junk food outlets along the way; the town centre, so well serviced by buses that its roads are congested and polluted, and unsafe for pedestrians. Creating a consistently healthpromoting environment means working to unravel these contradictions in the local system.This may be a public health concern, but it is not a task that public health professionals can achieve in isolation: transport, planning, procurement and commissioning all have a role to play, as do communities and a broad range of local partners. Creating a consistently health-promoting environment means aligning a diversity of agendas around a shared local vision, taking a whole system approach.The Soil Association and Sustrans have come together to devise a strategic workshop for local authorities, designed to support the development of a whole system approach. 'Creating Healthy Places: a whole system approach to food and active living' brings directors of service, senior officers, elected members and local partners together to explore the co-benefits of joint working, supporting participants to review their local approach and identify new ways of working together.The workshop is tailored to local circumstances and is run by an independent facilitator. Through a mixture of presentations, facilitated discussions and group exercises, participants explore the key policy levers that may help to create a more health-promoting environment, with a focus on identifying the co-benefits of working across service areas and with local partners. The workshop equips participants with a set of practical tools and is supported by a manual of best practice that includes case studies of actions taken by forward-thinking local authorities from across the United Kingdom.A New CollaborationCreating Healthy Places draws on the expertise of the Soil Association and Sustrans, two organisations with a breadth of experience in delivering practical projects aimed at creating healthier and more sustainable communities.Sustrans is a charity that promotes active living and sustainable transport. Its teams work with families, communities, policy-makers and partner organisations to support people to choose healthier, cleaner and cheaper journeys, and to transform places and spaces to become more supportive of healthy living. The National Cycle Network was developed by Sustrans, and now extends for 14,000 miles across the United Kingdom. Sustrans also engages with schools, workplaces, neighbourhoods and wider communities to empower people to lead more active lives.The Soil Association leads Food for Life, with national partners including the RSPH, and is working to make good food consistently available in nurseries, schools, universities, workplaces, hospitals, care homes and on the high street and to change behaviour through a 'whole setting approach'. This involves the provision of nutritious, sustainable food and the education and engagement of service users, their families and the wider community to enable and inspire them to eat well. The Soil Association also helps institutional and civil society partners in towns, cities, boroughs and counties to adopt a systems approach to making healthy and sustainable food a defining characteristic of where they live, and is the lead partner of the Sustainable Food Cities programme.The two organisations work independently, but are committed to creating a space for local authority decision-makers to come together and join one shared conversation around food and active living, taking a step away from the day job to think strategically about how things could work differently.An Emphasis On Co-BenefitsSince its inception, Creating Healthy Places has been run in a variety of local authorities, including London borough, unitary and two tier authorities. …