A physical activity and healthy eating program to enhance school staff health.

The six month intervention is guided by social-influence and cognitive-behavioural theories and utilizes the Get Healthy@Work framework to support school’s implementation of the following existing two programs; (i) Premier’s Sporting Challenge (PSC): To support school staff to increase their physical activity, schools will be supported to implement the NSW Department of Education’s Premiers Sporting Challenge. This 10 week program encourages staff both at an individual and school level to meet physical activity guidelines by monitoring and recording their own activity through the “PSC Tracker App”. The program provides school staff with pedometers and access to on-line resources to help achieve their physical activity goals. The PSC encourages participants to increase activity levels and tracks their progress through the app and an e-wall chart. Award levels for the 10 week challenge reflect a daily activity time commitment - either as part of team or as an individual. Once the Challenge has begun, data entry should be maintained on a week-to-week basis to effectively monitor physical activity progress. All types of moderate to vigorous physical activities can count toward an award. Awards are based on the amount of time spent being physically active. For example, Bronze 30 minutes per day, Silver 45 minutes per day, Gold 60 minutes per day, Diamond 80 minutes per day. The school communication platform app will also be used to send messages and reminders to school staff regarding physical activity. (ii) Healthy eating program: To support school staff to increase their consumption of vegetables, fruit and water and decrease their consumption of discretionary foods and sugary drinks, schools will be supported to implement a healthy eating program that will provide school staff with advice and resources on how to make simple healthier swaps to their lunches, snacks and catering for staff gatherings etc. from ‘less healthy’ foods for ‘healthier’ everyday items whilst at school. In addition school staff will be encouraged to use existing, reputable websites and apps such as those promoted on the Teachers Health Fund website to support their changes. Part of the program involves messaging to school staff through a communication platform app currently used by the school. App analytics will be used to monitor receiving of these messages by school staff. Support officer contact with the in-school champion throughout the intervention duration will be used to monitor staff progress with the healthy eating program. To increase the extent of schools’ implementation of these programs, strategies recommended by the NSW Governments Get Healthy@Work Framework as well as those that have previously been utilised by the research team to successfully change the health promoting policies and practices of schools and other organisations will be implemented. This includes; (i) Program implementation support- Intervention schools will have access to a support officer, an experienced health promotion practitioner with training in physical education or nutrition, to support implementation of the programs in the school by working directly with school champions and committees to overcome barriers, and provide on-going support. (ii) Obtaining school executive support- Support officers will meet with principals to gain their support for the initiative. Principals and the executive will be asked to demonstrate support for the implementation of the programs through their usual communications with staff. (iii) In-school Champion- each school will nominate an in-school champion who are existing staff members at the school, and who (with assistance of support officers) will lead and promote implementation of the programs in schools and chair the school committee. Champions will complete a 1-day face-to-face workshop conducted by dietitians and physical educaiton teachers on the project team. In-school champions will then have ongoing contact with support officers across the intervention duration. (iv) Provision of tools and resources- in-school champions will receive various printed and electronic instructional materials to implement the programs (posters, templates, power point presentations). Existing tools and resources from the Get Healthy@Work program will be adapted and tailored to the school work setting. (v) Implementation feedback- the support officer will work with in-school champions and committees to develop an action plan to identify key tasks to implementing the programs. Support officers will monitor implementation of the action plans and provide tailored feedback to in-school champions.