Islington council conducted research with teenage girls which focused on how girls in the borough feel about physical activity.
- What they enjoy, what they don’t.
- What the benefits of physical activity are for them.
- What their perceived barriers are to engaging in physical activity and what motivates them to engage in physical activity.
The research was used to work with girls to increase their levels of physical activity; one of the recommendations of that research was to create a bespoke physical activity club for teenage girls in the borough and the club was designed collaboratively with girls in the borough who made the decisions on when the club was run, what time the club was run and what activities they engaged in.
Last week, we held our first focus group with year 8 and 9 girls at AMSI to talk to the girls who have taken part in Sole Sisters Girls’ Physical Activity Club. The girls talked to us about why they started coming to the club, what they did and didn’t enjoy about it and about their feelings around physical activity in general. The girls’ feedback is invaluable and will be used to help us shape future work with teenage girls.
We would like to say a big thank you to the girls for sharing their thoughts and insights with us and it was great to see the girls again a couple of days later at the girls’ club session. We are looking forward to having a similar conversation with the year 10 girls and hopefully (fingers crossed!) the year 11 girls soon.