Broader deployment of physical activity professionals helps address staff shortages

According to authors Arnold Bronkhorst and Marleen Kools of the report ‘Opportunities for collaboration in sport, primary education and childcare’, deploying physical activity professionals more broadly can help reduce staff shortages in primary education and childcare. In various places where staff shortages are severe, this is already happening successfully. For example, in neighbourhood-oriented physical activity teams or as part of Integrated Child Centres. However, a prerequisite for broader deployment is greater clarity about contract forms and collaboration between sectors.

Existing initiatives deserve to be scaled up

Stakeholders from the three sectors emphasise the importance of good examples. Think of neighbourhood-oriented physical activity teams such as Goes United, or the deployment of physical activity professionals within child centres. Such initiatives show that collaboration between sectors works in practice. It is important to bring these examples together and actively share them. This enables other regions and organisations to learn from them and get started more quickly.

Need for room to experiment

Stakeholders call for additional room to experiment with new positions and forms of work, such as job carving and shared employment. Pilots can help determine what works. However, sufficient guidance and evaluation are essential.

Three concrete next steps

In the report, the authors make three recommendations:

  • Make good examples visible and transferable, for example through fact sheets and a digital knowledge base.
  • Encourage and monitor experiments, such as pilots with combined positions and local or regional physical activity teams.
  • Build a shared platform and joint vision. This will enable sport, primary education, childcare and the business community to work together on physical activity as part of child development.

Approach

The Mulier Institute conducted the research on behalf of the Human Capital Agenda Sport and Physical Activity. The HCA is a partnership of organisations from sport, physical activity, education and government. It focuses on a vital sport and physical activity sector with sufficient numbers of well-trained professionals. The findings are based on:

  • Document analysis.
  • Interviews with experts.
  • A brainstorming session with stakeholders.