How can the school environment influence the promotion of health enhancing physical activity? Frederick University is organizing a conference on "A whole school approach promoting Health Enhancing Physical Activity (HEPA)", on March 30. 

The Conference is held in the framework of the HEPA Project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union with the aim to analyse the best practices implemented to promote physical activity among young populations and develop a school-based global resource to address the global issue of physical inactivity among this age group. "The project suggests a holistic approach based on the recommendations of the World Health Organization" says Dr Elena Papacosta, Assistant Professor at the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences and the project's coordinator.  

 

During the Conference, keynote speaker Declercq Lukas, EU & Public Affairs Director, EuropeActive (Brussels) will give a speech on the importance of a cross-sectoral approach to HEPA while Paul Sellars, Research Associate at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Research Centre for Health, Activity and Wellbeing will share examples of using whole system approaches to promote health enhancing physical activity in Wales. 

From Finland, Timo Jaakkola, Associate Professor in the University of Jyväskylä's Sport Pedagogy Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences and Mikko Huhtiniemi, Development Manager and Researcher at the same Faculty will speak about creating physical active school environments in Finland. 

A multiplier event will follow with presentations by academics in Greece and Cyprus. Panos Constantininides, Assistant Professor at Frederick University's Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences will talk about promoting physical activity at school through active breaks in class and Victoria Pavlou, Professor at Frederick University's Department of Education will talk about interdisciplinary art teaching and physical activity promotion. 

You can see the Conference's Agenda here.

Frederick University is the project's coordinator. Project partners are Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Cardiff Metropolitan University (UK), Directorate of Secondary Education of Pieria (Greece), EuropeActive (Belgium), University of Jyväskylä (Finland), University of Bolzano (Italy) and the Cyprus Olympians Association (Cyprus).