Launching Fife Loves Life
At the start of February 2021, the child healthy weight team at NHS Fife launched Fife Loves Life, an exciting new healthy lifestyle programme for children and young people. The programme supports families to make positive lifestyle changes – from getting active, to eating well and working towards a healthy weight. Their fun-filled, family focused sessions combine interactive activities and practical healthy eating advice, which helps the whole family to feel great and enjoy all the experiences that life has to offer. Here we caught up with the team to find out more about the service – and their plans to further engage and support families over the coming months.
1. Can you tell us how you went about designing Fife Loves Life, why there was a need to improve the support available and how the new approach you’re taking will help families to make positive lifestyle changes?
Our child healthy weight service was previously delivered in community settings, with a focus on one-to-one support. However as the need for change and greater clinical intervention was recognised back in 2017, our dietetics team became responsible for delivering the service. We initially reached out to families, speaking to them over the phone and conducting a number of surveys, to understand what it was that they wanted from a healthy lifestyle programme. We also looked at other services across Scotland and identified what was needed to meet the national standards. From this, we’ve worked with colleagues across the region to design our Fife Loves Life programme and we’re delighted to see it come to life. The service takes a whole family approach and is tailored to the needs of each family – enabling them to achieve their personal goals. This has helped us to better engage families from the offset and increase positive outcomes.
2. How has Covid-19 impacted the design and roll-out of Fife Loves Life? What have been the main challenges and opportunities as a result of the pandemic?
The pandemic has inevitably delayed the roll out of Fife Loves Life but it has also allowed us to work together online, in ways that wouldn’t previously have been possible. We’ve designed the programme, developed pathways and produced innovative resources – all via digital platforms. Our child healthy weight service was paused during the first lock down and resumed in October 2020. We’re still experiencing some challenges around the collection of body measurements, delivery of group sessions and physical activity input. However we’re delivering the programme and supporting families over the phone at present, with plans to offer virtual consultations over Near Me in the near future.
3. You’ve also been working with partners across the East of Scotland to ensure that Fife Loves Life meets the National Standards for the Delivery of Weight Management Services for Children and Young People. What are some of your key achievements to date and still needs to be done in order to reach this goal?
We’ve worked with our colleagues in the Borders and Lothian to develop a range of resources for the programme that are helping us to digitally transform the service. The team also participated in sleep awareness training, run by Sleep Scotland, which equipped us with the skills to provide advice to families, carers, children and young people on sleep hygiene. In order to meet the standards, we still need to incorporate physical activity and psychology in to Fife Loves Life. We are planning to address this over the next six months so that we can offer a holistic service.
4. The national standards specifically refer to the need for digital innovation, to increase awareness of child healthy weight services and improve accessibility. How are you incorporating this in to Fife Loves Life?
We are developing a self-management app which will enable families who aren’t yet ready to engage with the service, to access healthy lifestyle support and resources online. This is particularly important for families who live remotely or are difficult to reach during the pandemic. It also means that they can receive support without having to participate in the full programme. As we develop the content, we plan to encourage other healthcare professionals involved in a child’s care to signpost families to the app and support lifestyle changes at an earlier stage. Near Me consultations are available for families if required. We also got in touch with the team leading the Connecting Scotland initiative, who provided us with iPads to ensure that local families who didn’t have access to a device can now get online and engage with the service. This is really important and allows us to start to tackle the issue of digital poverty, particularly whilst we are unable to deliver sessions face-to-face.
5. What has your experience been like delivering the programme to date and how are families finding the support?
We’ve only been delivering the programme for the past couple months however a number of families are actively engaged and we are receiving positive feedback. We plan to evaluate and develop the service further throughout the rest of the year. Covid-19 still brings with it many challenges, including the collection of body measurements which are vital to assess progress. We will do everything we can to find a way around this, particularly as restrictions are eased, and also gain insights from patients. This will really help us to understand what’s working and what isn’t – shaping the service around the specific needs of families.
6.What are your plans and priorities for Fife Loves Life over the coming months?
Our priority over the coming months is to raise greater awareness of the service. This includes the launch of our Fife Loves Life app, a virtual school bag drop of our promotional leaflet and a social media campaign, making use of the channels which young people and their families engage with. We hope that this will increase self-referrals to the service. We also plan to provide training for other health and social care professionals involved in a child’s care to help them raise the issue of diet and healthy weight, adopt our key messages and understand the support that’s available – ensuring we are all working towards the same aim.
To meet the team and find out more about Fife Loves Life, click here to watch their session at Public Health Scotland’s new child healthy weight bite size learning series.
