Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Girls Can: Social Prescribing and Active Menopause

Whilst each district/borough of LLR will have different priorities, people and places that will determine their own individual challenges; our collective and ‘shared purpose’ has always been to ensure the voices and experiences of women are heard, and pivotal to increasing physical activity and reducing inequality of access to opportunities to be active. 

There are a number of challenges in achieving this:

• Supporting our least active women and girls to get active means achieving true behaviour change, something we cannot achieve without understanding the lived experience and barriers to activity women face such as fear of judgement, lack of confidence, lack of motivation and juggling life’s requirements. Committing to understanding lived experiences calls for considerable time, investment and for women’s health to be a priority within organisations. 
• Programmes that are not inclusive by design result in expecting women to turn up to programmes that have not involved any prior consultation, leaving organisations wondering why their participation numbers are so low. 
• Developing and helping to change the negative attitudes, behaviours and perceptions of women regarding physical activity can be challenging when dealing with socio-cultural beliefs that are firmly ingrained.
• Lack of funding within community groups who are already working with our target audiences to deliver the operational support required. 

We recognise that our ‘solutions’ are ongoing, and often the best solutions come from listening to local women. However, the below have aided our creation of the LLR Girls Can campaign and have increased the number of physically active women across LLR. 

• Sharing key messages around the benefits of physical activity for women at all stages of life (from menstrual health to pregnancy to menopause and everything in-between).
• Collaborative working - joining up the pockets of work that are already happening locally to form one integrated network of women’s health advocates. Working with partners from GP surgeries to voluntary groups to charities to leisure centres, we have been able to provide greater clarity, direction, and knowledge, both benefiting partners for their knowledge of where to signpost women towards, and demonstrating to women themselves that their community exists to support them.
• Building on the above, every woman should be upskilled in her body. To recognise when things are not right, but also the reasons why that might be. And then crucially make an informed decision around the next steps in order to treat those issues. This might be visiting a GP sure, but there are also so many other ways to receive support. Physical activity being a huge one! In that sense, we can take a proactive, preventative approach in tackling women’s health issues, to empower women to make decisions about their own body. This should include information around how physical activity can support the management of many symptoms. It is everyone’s responsibility to support women’s health - 50% of the population are female so this will include friends, family, partners, employers, coaches, healthcare professionals – all who have some degree of influence in making a positive impact on women.
• Developing understanding of the needs of our ethnic diverse communities. Considerations around dress, language, instructor, type of activity, music, and venue are all absolutely fundamental to accessing physical activity for some individuals.  
• Better communicating what counts as physical activity and the vast array of support networks and opportunities available outside of the gym environment. Working with our local community groups that are already trusted points of contact for local women to spread these messages.
• Increased funding to local districts to deliver specifically on the women and girls agenda.
• Working strategically with local authority colleagues to become more involved in the development and implementation of physical activity in women’s healthcare policies and services. 

LLR Girls Can in the Community Fund:

Using Sport England This Girl Can funding, we launched a LLR Girls Can in the Community small grants across Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, designed to support community groups to start a new or to sustain a physical activity programme for women and girls.

£9073 was invested into 21 different projects across seven areas of LLR. Approximately 930 women benefited from a new or sustained physical activity offer. 19 groups (90%) were directly supporting those with living with a long-term health condition and 12 groups (57%) were directly supporting those from ethnic diverse communities. 16 groups (76%) were directly supporting those from low socio-economic groups. These statistics highlight where we can see true impact within our underserved communities and create sustainable change to physical activity opportunities.

Active Menopause:

In collaboration with our local Physical Activity and Health teams, we delivered 4 My Active Menopause sessions. The offer was a two-week programme (two sessions over two weeks) to introduce women to physical activity for the management of their symptoms. Each session lasted for two hours. Across the four events, 55 women attended, with nearly half living with one or more long-term health conditions. Colleagues from LLR Mind, Social Prescribing and Local Area Coordination teams, Age UK, Talking Therapies, Primary Care Networks and local leisure centres attended to introduce their local support offer. This gave the women an opportunity to hear from passionate professionals regarding programmes that demonstrate longevity and advocacy for women's health. Physical activity included an hour of menopause yoga and a menopause strength and resistance session, led by specialist menopause instructors. Our sessions concluded with an open and honest sharing of lived experiences through a Q&A. As a result, four new menopause offers have been developed across Leicestershire, and there continues to be an increasing energy around developing further menopause support. 

Speaking on the Active Menopause support, local women said:

“I finally feel seen. The sessions have certainly opened my to how little exercise I’ve been doing. So I’m now starting to take action to change that which has been a really useful confidence boost. It has given me some hope and positivity on a way forward.”

“It was fantastic to see so many ladies sharing their experiences and developing their knowledge about the importance of physical activities as they navigate their Menopause journey.”

“I was really keen to find some regular activity that will boost my energy, improve my strength and be sustainable for me to keep up long term. Active Menopause has shown me that this is possible and I now look forward to getting out and moving every day.”

Active Menopause Community of Learning:

• Active Together are leading a national ‘Active Menopause Community of Learning’ – a network of other Active Partnership colleagues looking to influence the menopause agenda at a national level and create a national impetus and conversation around women’s health. 

Creation of a local women’s health platform and resources: 

• ‘LLR Girls Can’ webpage, directing women to information at all stages of life (menstrual health, pregnancy, pelvic health, menopause, sexual health, mental health and cancers.) The page includes information around how physical activity can support you at any stage of life and includes a directory of local female-only physical activity opportunities. 
• ‘Active Menopause’ webpage covering FAQs, how physical activity can help to manage symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, menopause in the workplace (for women and employers), diet, prescribed and non-prescribed treatments, local physical activity opportunities, multiple ‘follow’ along activity videos, four webinars on diet and nutrition, and web links to further useful resources / websites. 
• Creation of ‘Physical Activity for Perimenopausal and Menopausal Women’ flyer (based on the physical activity guidelines for adults from the Chief Medical officer). Covers relevant information in bitesize and accessible chunks. 
• Creation of ‘Your Guide to an Active Menopause’, a 24-page booklet covering six types of physical activity (aerobic, strength & resistance, flexibility, impact, desk-based, functional) with pictures, top tips, instructional ‘how-to’s’, and importantly relating all information to how physical activity can support the management of your symptoms. The guide also covers pelvic health and pelvic floor exercises.
• We also distributed t-shirts, medals, shoelaces and water bottles branded with ‘LLR Girls Can’ which helped to develop a community spirt of local female activity. 

All resources were written in collaboration with a women’s health specialist. 

• Working with women’s community groups to advocate for physical activity and build in activity opportunities into pre-existing programmes. 
• Ensuring our core work is centred around the social prescribing model – if we can identify what is meaningful to the individual, then it is inherently sustainable. Asking: What do you enjoy? What makes you feel good? What makes you happy? For most, it’s not about running marathons, it’s about finding ways to move more everyday that work for you. Everyone can and should be able to feel the benefits of physical activity.
• Sustainability was a core requirement of the LLR Girls Can in the Community grant – in order to successfully receive funding, participants had to demonstrate how their project was sustainable beyond the short-term investment of the small grants. This means all 21 projects are continuing to provide physical activity opportunities. 
• Local women told us that access to accessible resources and information would help to sustain their physical activity levels, building their knowledge and confidence and empowering them to make decisions about their own health and wellbeing. The resources listed above support this feedback.  They also have longevity now they are created, and can be distributed in mass where needed. The resources are also free to download on our website. 

• Place based working is key to sustained participation, working within and for our local communities. Collaborative working across multiple sectors and finding a ‘common purpose’ will always be fundamental to this. 
• Finding out what is meaningful to the individual is time well spent as you are far more likely to encourage true and sustained behaviour change.
• Localised funding can help community groups to deliver the appropriate programmes, and support in accessing this funding is often required from local authorities. 
• Go where women already are – we may have a greater capacity to influence community groups and organisations that are currently not engaging in physical activity (for example, a local coffee morning). 
• Partner buy-in requires translating the benefits of physical activity for women into their language – whoever ‘their’ might be (for example, physical activity can reduce appointments for GP surgeries, reduce days lost to menopause symptoms for workplaces, increase participation rates for sports clubs… all follow the same long-term vision of increasing activity and reducing inequality but the means of getting there may look different)
• Holistic offers are important, ensuring the wider determinants of health – mental health, HRT, nutrition, sleep, family, work, are all considered and built into a wider education programme when delivering physical activity. Empowering within with the knowledge and understanding to make decisions about their own health.

• https://www.active-together.org/llrgirlscan
• https://www.active-together.org/activemenopause 
• https://www.active-together.org/news/2023/11/my-active-menopause-success-at-loughborough-wellbeing-centre