Active Sussex Conference 2024 – Why collaboration and listening to lived experience is key

Collaboration, listening to lived experience, and how to be more diverse and inclusive were the themes at this year’s Active Sussex Conference.

100 people from across Sussex attended the conference, which took place at the American Express Stadium in Brighton today (Tuesday, September 24).

The first session analysed Brighton & Hove City Council’s whole-system approach to tackling inactivity in the city – something that has been attributed to the city having the highest adult activity rate in England in the most recent Sport England Active Lives Survey.

At the conference, representatives from the council’s healthy lifestyles team, transport planning, sports facilities, youth provision, and School Games spoke about the work they have been doing across the city to encourage residents to move more as part of their Let’s Get Moving strategy.

The strategy, which was in part shaped by Active Sussex’s Getting Sussex Moving strategy, is a ten-year plan to support people in the city in moving more and benefiting from leading active lives.

Verena Quin, Brighton & Hove City Council’s Healthy Lifestyles Manager, said: “It has been a real shift for us over the last few years. 

“We always encourage people to be physically active, and we drive the guidelines, but we have definitely changed our language more recently to talk about how bad inactivity is for us and, for us, our new strategy is indicative of that. 

“We encourage people to think about every minute counting and making physical activity everyone’s business.”

She added: “We are lucky in Brighton & Hove to have an unwavering political commitment to the physical activity agenda.”

This year the speakers who took part in the Innovation Station, where speakers have two minutes to share an update, were Tom Johnston from The Skate farm CIC, Chloe Bolingbroke from South Downs Health and Care Ltd, Mark Aberdour, from Preston Park Youth Cycling Club, Oliver Harvey, from University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, and JP Omari from Streetfunk Dance Enterprise CIC.

The second conference session examined the importance of listening to lived experience.

Joanna Wood is visually impaired, battled with chronic illness, and is now a carer for her mum. 

Her active journey included rowing in the Boat Race for the University of Cambridge and running and climbing. 

Joanna shared some of her barriers to being active and how we can better support people like her in accessing sports and activities.

She said: “It is important to see the barriers so we can do something about them. 

“Being active is monumentally hard for me and for people who share these barriers, but we are not giving up. 

“I made a promise to myself when I was 19 that I would see how far I can take sport and I still plan to, so I am launching my competitive sporting career at 39. 

“You should not give up either, no matter how insurmountable the barriers facing your communities. 

“Everyone has the right to be active, everyone has the right to find their active and everyone has the right to thrive as active.”

Amanda Silva from Diversity Resource International then spoke about their work to engage underserved, ethnically diverse communities to move more.

During her session, she discussed how organisations should collaborate with organisations already embedded in the communities they are trying to engage with.

“I think the biggest challenge of all is the time it takes to build relationships and connections and to build the trust with these communities,” she said. 

“I would like you to think of a time you have tried to reach your audience and the challenges that has brought to you because it is really difficult when you have not engaged with that audience before. 

“The solution to that may be right next to you or right in front of you in this room. 

“We would like to encourage you to build relationships, especially to engage in partnerships with community organisations that have built trust and relationships with the communities already, and they can provide a bridge for your organisation to the communities you would like to reach and engage with. 

“Listening to the communities will then allow you to tailor your activities to their needs and challenges because you will be engaging directly with them. 

“That will bring you success because it will be a really targeted activity with really targeted actions to break down the barriers that these people are facing and that you did not know about.”

The conference’s final session examined how the sport and physical activity sector can become more diverse, inclusive, and socially responsible to tackle inequalities.

The attendees discussed topics such as culture, experience and relationships, which form part of the free Moving to Inclusion framework that helps organisations analyse how inclusive an organisation they are.

After the event, Anthony Statham, interim CEO at Active Sussex, said: “It was fantastic to see so many partners supporting another sell-out Active Sussex Conference. 

“The conference brought to life key components of the Getting Sussex Moving Strategy by highlighting whole-system working, understanding lived experiences, and being an inclusive sector as cornerstones for enabling people to be physically active and move more.

“The energy for collaborative working was evident for all those in attendance. We now need to channel this energy into creating meaningful, sustainable change across our networks and systems, and I’ve every confidence that together we can create the conditions to support Getting Sussex Moving.”

To learn more about Active Sussex and its work across East and West Sussex in Getting Sussex Moving, read the Active Sussex Impact Report 2023-24 here.