I-PARC symposium on children and adolescents in physical activity and sport

On the 6th of October, at the Spencer Hotel (the Docklands, Dublin), the Irish Physical Activity Research Collaboration (I-PARC, https://i-parc.ie/) held an expert symposium on ‘Children and Adolescents in Physical Activity and Sport’. The event brought together a broad audience of researchers, policy makers, and practitioners and featured prominent national and international speakers organised in four thematic blocks: 1) Demographic trends and participation patterns, 2) Surveillance and monitoring of child and adolescent physical activity and sport, 3) Motivating young people to adopt a healthy active lifestyle through physical education and sport, and 4) Diverse and hard to reach populations involvement in health enhancing physical activity and sport.

The event was kicked off with introductory remarks from Fiona Mansergh of the Department of Health and James Lavelle of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

In the morning session Benny Cullen of Sport Ireland, Catherine Woods of the University of Limerick and Angela Carlin of the University of Ulster provided information about the trends and patterns in sport and physical activity participation in Ireland while Gregor Starc of the University of Ljubljana, Brendan O’Keeffe, Karen Cotter of Active School Flag and Emmet Major of Planet Youth presented on initiatives, both foreign and domestic, for the monitoring and surveillance of physical activity in children and adolescents.

In the afternoon session, Leen Haerens of Ghent University and Mika Manninen of Dublin City University spoke about the about their work, informed by psychological theories, motivating you people to be physically active while practitioners James Murrihy of Clare Local Sport Partnership, Helen Ambrose of the HSE, Brian Caskey of Limestone United and Des Tomlinson of the Football Association of Ireland spoke about their work supporting participation of diverse and hard to reach populations in physical activity and sport.

Concluding remarks were provided by Marie Murphy of the University of Ulster.

Established in 2018, I-PARC involves multiple stakeholders, across policy, practice, and research, who work together to apply insight, intelligence, and innovation to the challenge of getting more people to become more active, more often in Ireland.

For additional information, please contact Dr Enrique Garcia (egarcia@sportireland.ie), I-PARC Coordinator.