CREATING MECHANISMS FOR CONTINUOUS IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SPORTS CLUB FOR HEALTH GUIDELINES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
▶Summary
Background The Sports Club for Health (SCforH) movement has a long and rich history in Europe. Since the establishment of the SCforH movement in 2008, three international projects funded by the European Commission were carried out with the aim to tackle the high prevalence of insufficient physical activity, primarily by supporting European sports clubs and organisations to focus more on the promotion of health-enhancing sports activities. Objectives The objectives were: to document the history and current status of the SCforH movement; develop a SCforH online course for stakeholders in the sports sector; raise awareness of the SCforH guidelines in Europe; provide relevant training to EU Physical Activity Focal Points; encourage tertiary education teachers to include the SCforH online learning tool in the curricula of their subjects; expand the scientific evidence relevant to SCforH; and strengthen partnerships within the SCforH consortium. Implementation We organized 14 events, including 6 project team meetings, 3 symposia, 3 workshops, 1 seminar, and 1 conference, with a total of 1,395 attendees. We published news about the activities of the project on websites and social media platforms. We conducted a Europe-wide survey among 705 stakeholders in the European sports sector. Invitations to participate in the SCforH online course were distributed via email to a total of 3,809 stakeholders in the sports sector from 36 European countries. Achievements The main outcomes of the project are: SCforH resolution; book “Sports Club for Health (SCforH) Movement in the European Union”; SCforH textbook and online course attended by 2,533 participants; SCforH country cards; report on the awareness and use of SCforH guidelines among HEPA policymakers, promoters, and researchers in Europe; a report on the use of SCforH guidelines in the context of higher education courses in Europe; 4 scientific articles relevant to SCforH; and 6 conference abstracts.