Fellow: Dr Katie Rebecca Garstang; Partner: Warwickshire Cricket Foundation (WCF); School/Dept: School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Science
There is a high prevalence and severity of poor mental health in ethnic minority communities and lower life expectancy for women in Birmingham. As physical activity is one of the most utilised behaviour change strategies to increase health outcomes Warwickshire Cricket Foundation (WCF) are seeking to increase physical activity levels in women from ethnic minority backgrounds through their Cricket Cities programmes. The aim of my fellowship is to support WCF to ensure that coaches facilitating these programmes have the appropriate tools to meet the needs of these women, with the intention to increase retention in WCF programmes, as well as ensure the effectiveness of WCF programmes at improving physical activity levels and promoting positive mental health.
There are 4 phases to this fellowship. The first phase will explore the barriers and facilitators faced by women from ethnic minority backgrounds through discussions with women in the community and coaches delivering sessions. Key findings from these focus groups will inform the following phases. The second phase will use questionnaires to evaluate the effectiveness of the current WCF programmes at improving health outcomes as well as identifying characteristics that could be influential in the effectiveness of the programme’s aim to improve physical activity levels and promote positive mental health. In phase three, workshops with participants and coaches will be held to develop a toolkit with resources for coaches to be implemented within the Cricket Cities programmes. In phase four, this toolkit will be showcased to other sporting organisations to identify adaptations that can be made to the toolkit to improve its practicality and usability across different sporting contexts.