The Project

The PROGRESS project (Promoting Green Strategies in Sport) is focused on encouraging participation in sport and physical activity, in particular by supporting the Council Recommendation on HEPA and the EU Guidelines on Physical Activity.

The project aims to increase physical activity between parents and children through the use of new technologies and gamified activities. We believe this kind of actions at European level can help Member States and sport governing bodies and authorities to better address emerging and current health and societal problems, such as physical inactivity, obesity, cardiovascular and other chronic diseases related to the absence of an active lifestyle.

PROJECT SUMMARY

In Europe four major needs exist with respect to HEPA:

a) stop the decline of physical activity participation,
b) develop effective interventions including parents and outdoor physical activity in order to promote health enhancing physical activity,
c) focus on countries with high physical inactivity rates, such as the South-East Europe countries and
d) integrate new technologies into interventions aiming to promote health enhancing physical activities.
To address the existing needs the PROGRESS project focuses on the promotion of parent-child outdoor physical activity in South-East Europe through the use of new technologies and gamified activities.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES

The specific objectives of the project include:

Developing a research study on best practices about educational activities promoting outdoor physical activity participation;
Conducting a field investigation of physical educators’, coaches’ and trainers’, and parents’ beliefs about how to improve parent-child interactions and eventually promote outdoor physical activity participation;
Developing evidence-based educational tool including training resources for physical educators, trainers and coaches and parents;
Testing the usability and effectiveness of the educational resources in helping physical educators, coaches and trainers, and parents promoting outdoor physical activity participation;
Developing and proposing a European public policy to redefine and upgrade parent-child interactions and facilitate outdoor physical activity participation.
Creating and developing of a dedicated webapp. The development of a gamified model to encourage people involved in physical activity through provision of information and rewards for participation in outdoors physical activities is expected to further enhance the potential of the project’s outputs.