Case Study 1: A Large Regional School is one of five Workplace Case Studies developed by the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) as a part of the Strategic Evaluation of Prevention Programs (SEPP). These Case Studies were informed by 10,000 Steps Coordinators to investigate the relationship between the implementation of 10,000 Steps strategies and their impact on the success of Tournament implementation.
1. Descriptions of the staff composition, local environment, and 10,000 Steps program engagement of the workplaces profiled for case studies.
A regional school with around 100 staff, comprising a mixture of leadership, teaching, and support roles. The physical environment of the school is large, with space for sporting activities. The school has run 10,000 Steps Tournaments annually for the last decade, organised by a sole workplace coordinator. The Tournament is run during Term 3 and is regarded as a highlight of the school year. The coordinator has incorporated the Tournament into a broader umbrella health and wellbeing focussed event with other activities for the staff and local community to engage in during the period of the Tournament. Although the school has a wellbeing group, the Tournament itself is entirely driven by the coordinator.
2. How the social, organisational, environmental, community and policy levels of support for physical activity in the case study workplaces were influenced by Tournament implementation.
- Success of Tournaments was linked to an inherent cultural passion around improving the health and wellbeing of staff.
- Prior Tournament success drove interest and enthusiasm in future implementation and participation.
- There was a motivation to positively contribute to the community, such as modelling positive behaviours to students. This was highlighted by a regular Tournament participant:
… So challenges like that will get you out on the oval, stepping kids will step with you. You’re stepping with your friends. You’re chatting as you’re doing it. It gets everyone involved. You’ll see the other teachers out there doing it and there’s a little bit of common bantering, like, ‘Oh, we went out, we did this many steps, I’m up to this, what are you up to?’ So it gets everyone chatting about it and moving and you physically see it. (Participant 1)
- There was substantial buy-in from all levels of staff.
- Tournaments were viewed, not as a discrete event, but rather as one part of a larger, more holistic approach to wellbeing:
… it ties in to a lot of the wellbeing, like, when you look at things that make a person whole. Like, the 10,000 Steps ties into that health component, but there’s also, like, we talk about achievement, positive friendship, relationships and all of that. And by adding in those other things, you’re covering all those things that contribute to our wellbeing, so yeah, which is really nice. (Participant 2)
- The placement of Tournaments within a larger umbrella event focussed on improving mental and physical health across multiple domains enabled repeat implementation.
- The sole coordinator was regarded as a Champion who drives enthusiasm amongst staff and creates a social environment that motivates participation and valuing community health and wellbeing.
3. The influence of 10,000 Steps workplace resources in determining Tournament success - profiles of how 10,000 Steps resources were used or adapted by workplace coordinators.
- Made good use of the Tournament and Leaderboard functions of the website and mobile app. These functions were a part of a larger annual month-long event dedicated to mental and physical wellbeing.
- The team management function for Tournaments allowed for customised emails and newsletters sent out to participants as updates on Tournament progress (e.g., highlighting achievements of participants).
… It’s every Sunday night I write that up, so they’ll get it by Monday morning and what do I include in on that. Yeah, I use [10,000 Steps’] statistics. So from the site, that’s really helpful. That’s how I get who’s hit the 20,000 thousand club, who’s training for 30,000. (Coordinator)
- Although some resources outside of the Tournament feature were used (e.g., posters), the Tournament was primarily driven by homegrown resources that were adapted to suit the needs of the workplace and community.
I think the important thing is when [coordinator] creates a tournament, she purposely tries to match people in their year levels or in their friend groups so then that group of people encourages each other to get out. So it becomes a bit of friendly competition. So she’ll put into comp things, challenges I showed earlier before everyone else joined. [Coordinator] creates a timetable for our term and it’s all based on mind, body, soul and student participation. (Participant 1)
- Due to the high level of involvement in developing additional activities for the umbrella health and wellbeing event, the Resources on the 10,000 Steps website were not currently being utilised.
- Strategies that enabled engagement included creating teams of friends, encouraging friendly competition, providing regular Tournament updates through email, social media, and regular newsletters.