Design your intervention activities
- Consider the readiness of your population to address physical activity
Think about what you want participants to get from being part of the sessions and how you would like them to respond.
These sessions are most effective when characteristics of your population are taken into consideration (see Assessment and Prioritization). The table below provides additional information to assist you in developing strategies to help individuals with different levels of readiness to change behaviors related to physical activity.
Stage of readiness to change behaviors related to increasing physical activity
Recommendations for intervention strategies
Those who are not thinking about changing their lifestyle behaviors
Discuss the pros (reasons why changing lifestyle behaviors is important) and cons (reasons why changing lifestyle behaviors is challenging or undesirable).
Those who would like to change their lifestyle behaviors
Provide assistance in developing long-term goals, identify short-term successes, reinforce interest in changing their lifestyle behaviors, minimize barriers such as access places for physical activity, increase social support, and find rewards for accomplishments.
Those who have just started to change their lifestyle behaviors
In addition to the above items, offer guidance on how to make it a priority to change their lifestyle behaviors, create a personal plan for changing lifestyle behaviors, and track progress.
Those who have been changing their lifestyle behaviors for some time now but continue to struggle with challenges.
Suggest helpful hints to anticipate barriers, create back-up plans, create daily routines that enable regular engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviors, increase social support, and identify incentives.
Those who have changed their lifestyle behaviors and feel confident that they will continue engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors over time
In addition to the above items, provide recommendations for ways to maintain self-confidence and balance.
Many different types of group education interventions have been used by others. Go to Tools and Resources for Physical Activity Group Education to see how these have been used, including:
- Establishing learning objectives and acquiring associated educational materials.
- Working with participants to set their own goals.
- Educating participants on the signs and symptoms, causes, prevention, treatment methods, and health risks of health conditions related to physical inactivity.
- Distributing materials, such as resource lists and community program information.
- Increasing awareness of and encouraging referrals to health professionals specializing in physical activity.
- Providing skills training and activities to increase self-confidence to change lifestyle behaviors, including competitive and non-competitive intervention activities.
- Encouraging coping skills, problem-solving skills, and other social skills to resist peer and family influences on lifestyle behaviors.
- Avoiding or dealing with social situations where inappropriate behaviors are encouraged.
Group education aimed at increasing physical activity may address different types of skills, use a variety of activities (e.g., role modeling social skills, describing methods of coping with challenges), or focus on different types of messages. Regardless of the intent of the session, remember that most individuals can only remember and process 3-7 pieces of information at a time, so keep each session focused and specific. A small amount of repetition can actually be useful to emphasize certain important points. It is also useful for the instructor to be enthusiastic and share their own experiences to the extent it is appropriate. In terms of skill building, it can be helpful to describe the skill, demonstrate the skill, and ask the participant to demonstrate the skill through role playing activities.
- Enhance existing partnership
It is useful to enhance existing partnerships to develop and modify planned activities and strategies. The partnership should include representatives of key organizations and community members. This will assist with identifying and obtaining needed resources (e.g., space) as well as with recruiting participants into your intervention. Moreover, it will ensure that your activities are appropriate for the population of interest. While you may have started with one group of partners you may wish to add new partners once you have established your goals and objectives.
- Train group education instructors/facilitators
Recruit trained instructors or facilitators to run the group education interventions or send existing instructors to get trained. Even experienced trainers or facilitators may need additional training to ensure they understand the rationale for your particular intervention and to ensure proper delivery of the content of your intervention. It may be useful to consult with others who have been successful in developing group education interventions. Some interventions have trained individuals who understand or are part of the population of interest (e.g., community health workers, lay health advisors) to become facilitators and encourage the development of these skills within a culturally specific perspective.
- Design your group education sessions
Start by identifying your objectives. You can think about what you want participants to learn, objectives for increasing physical activity, how many people will participate, and how long it will take them to satisfy these objectives. It is important to set realistic objectives for the participants in your program. It may also be important to provide both strategies designed to increase knowledge and those to provide skills to change behavior as well as how to obtain support for these behavior changes. The consideration of specific strategies to include should also take into account cultural, family, and lifestyle differences among groups.
Next, you will need to figure out the action steps that will help you accomplish your objectives. Generally, your action steps will include information about physical activity and conditions associated with lack of physical activity, the benefits of self-management as well as skill-building to encourage participation in a range of different types of strategies to increase self-management; and maintenance of healthy lifestyle behaviors at home and in the community to sustain health over time. Once you have identified all of the action steps, you can begin to develop your session plans.
There are many creative ideas for different sessions and activities. Go to Tools and Resources for Physical Activity to see examples of what others have used.
- Create a timeline and assign roles and responsibilities
Work with your partners to decide on the timeline for the group education intervention as well as who will be responsible for carrying out the session plans and activities. Be very specific about roles, tasks and timelines to ensure that the intervention is implemented successfully.