Collaborative Leadership

The purpose of this objective is about how Active Humber displays collaborative leadership in the way it operates across organisational boundaries to get the most physically inactive, active by delivering shared results, and optimising the use of resources, assets, and skills. It has been a challenging year to do this as our partners main focus was around the pandemic.

Early in the pandemic after talking with partners we released a document called Forward in Motion which set out 6 challenges we would tackle with partners to help the Humber stay active during and recovering from the pandemic. This approach was welcomed by partners.

Whilst the minds and thoughts of partners focussed on the pandemic, we, in a supportive way had the discussions with partners on the move from the Sport England strategy Towards an Active Nation to the new strategy Uniting the Movement. Explaining how this new approach would really help to address the inequalities brought into stark reality during the pandemic.

We worked hard on making sure our 'tone of voice' was consistently applied so that in our leadership role we were able to influence in a collaborative and inclusive way. Partners welcomed this approach.

Our leadership role saw us build new alliances with partners on tackling inequalities and we worked closely with the Activity Alliance (AA) on how we support people with disabilities. We took the lead for the Yorkshire & Humber region and worked with the AA to bring together a whole range of partners to support people with disabilities and long-term health conditions.

The year also brought to the fore the challenges faced by those from culturally diverse communities. We tackled this from a local, regional to national level and brought together partners around tackling this issue in rural and coastal areas working hard to be seen as a trusted ally, leader, and supporter for our isolated culturally diverse communities in rural and coastal areas.

Another clear priority in acting as a collaborative leader was leading the partnership of North East Coastal Active Partnerships (NECAP)

to report addressing the issues of coastal inequalities along the North East coast of England. Much of this work was showing how the pandemic was so much more devastating for coastal communities and the role of physical activity in helping the recovery.

At a regional level we undertook our collaborative leadership role in our work with Policy Yorkshire which during the year looked at how sport and physical activity across Yorkshire and the Humber can best be delivered. This group is working with the Local Government Yorkshire & Humber Leaders and CEO group.

The CEO is the chair of Physical Activity Yorkshire which is a group of health-related organisations who come together at a Yorkshire & Humber level to influence the physical activity system. The emphasis during the year has been about how as organisations we assist in the recovery from Covid-19 and ‘return to play’, as organisations we best share good practise and influence other partners such as the Directors of Adult Social Care. The latter part of the year focussed on the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) and this role in physical activity.