For us, co-production is at the heart of the work that we do, so we support people with lived experience of mental ill-health, which we call 'Experts by Experience' or EbEs, to work in equal partnership with healthcare professionals or professionals in other relevant fields, ‘Experts by Training’ (EbT), so together they can come up with effective solutions.
What we’ve learnt
One impactful outcome of our partnership with Sport England is the design and dissemination of a questionnaire co-designed with EbEs.
The questionnaire, based on the Theoretical Domains Framework, examined the emotional barriers, environmental context and resources, social influence and beliefs about the consequences and capabilities, with respect to engaging in physical activity.
A great example of how barriers and enablers interact with a person moving appeared when one of our EbEs mentioned how a change in financial circumstances meant she had to join a different gym to reduce costs (environmental context barrier).
She didn’t enjoy the new gym and felt judged and unwelcome because of her size (emotional barrier), but thanks to the support from family and friends, and as long as they attended with her, she continued to go (social influence enabler).
One person living with bipolar disorder in our focus groups understood the importance of physical activity in her routine, mentioning how when this was lost she’d felt she lacked energy, her mood would lower and she wouldn’t be able to achieve what she had planned for the day.
So she started planning physical activity into the day to help with routine.
Another person living with schizophrenia explained that when in the gym they would always have a shower, but that otherwise they would sometimes go for days without showering if their mood was low.
Improved physical health was not mentioned as a benefit of physical activity as much as mental health was.
However, poor physical health was often mentioned as being a barrier to physical activity, hence breaking the assumption that physical activity aims for physical health only, or mainly.
And that’s not all!
More than two-thirds of survey respondents felt they would gain socially from engaging in physical activity with others.
One EbE talked about taking part in walking football and how the gained peer support allowed him to feel “less alone”.
Working for an active future
In all of this, the impact of Sport England's funding has been instrumental.
We are creating a ‘move-more mentor’ role aimed at supporting people affected by mental ill-health to have deeper conversations about physical activity by providing the emotional and practical support identified as necessary.
Working with EbEs and EbTs, we are linking together conversations about physical activity with stronger support and physical activity provision.
This includes working with leisure services to co-produce sessions and a good-practice guide and collaborating with healthcare professionals to improve conversations about physical activity, and connecting those with our wider work.
By continuing our partnership with Sport England and piloting scalable, sustainable interventions, we are creating a brighter future.
We are reaching more groups and expanding our impact, and while this is (much) more than one day, World Mental Health Day is a great time to remind ourselves of the many benefits of physical activity for those with severe mental illness.
So don’t forget to talk about it this World Mental Health Day. Physical activity truly is a fundamental human right.
