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Healthy living team welcomes new members 

Three new members of staff have recently joined the Healthy Living Team, who are responsible for improving the health and wellbeing of local residents by increasing the number of people taking part in physical activities

09 September, 2021

It has been a difficult 18 months for healthy living team, as one of the key sectors it supports went in and out of lockdown, with limited access to facilities and group exercise opportunities. But the team did an excellent job of working virtually and providing access to activities wherever possible; you may have followed some of the exercise referral team's youtube sessions or enrolled your children on the summer of fun programme recently, which the team helped to coordinate.  

And now they are welcoming three new members to their team. To introduce them, and the different schemes they will be working on, we've pulled together some short profiles on each of them.

Elliot PottingerName: Elliot Pottinger

Job title: Healthy Living Officer (Adults)

Job description: Elliot's role has a focus on adult participation in sport and physical activity. The first project he's been working on is the 60+ Leisure Scheme, which is seeking to engage with and support inactive individuals in this age group to become engaged in physical activity. With a particular focus on those living in areas of deprivation. Elliot has already made good progress with this scheme in the short time he has been in post, he started working for the Council at the end of May. This is a new post funded by Cardiff & Vale Public Health Prevention Funding and.

 

Louis WonesName: Louis Wones

Job title: Exercise Referral Development Officer

Job description: Louis will be part of the National Exercise Referral Team. Louis’ main role is to support the transition of individuals who are finishing the NERS scheme into appropriate community provision to encourage sustained participation in physical activity. Louis will also look at attrition within the scheme, reasons why there is not always an uptake of individuals onto the scheme once they have been referred by their GP and those who drop out of the scheme. This links nicely with a new project we will be commencing shortly with Cardiff & the Vale Public Health team where a behavioural science consultant will look at the pathway/processes and see if there are any suggested amendments to make them more behaviourally informed and effective. Whilst this will be a Vale based project, the NERS National Management Group are interested in this project to see if there is any learning that can be shared to support improvements in the national scheme. Louis’ post is a new one within the team and the behavioural science work is being funded by the Cardiff & Vale Public Health Prevention Funding.

 

Bronnie GriffithsName: Bronnie Griffiths

Job title: Healthy Living Officer (Disability Sport)

Job description: Bronnie has taken over the existing role of Healthy Living Officer (Disability Sport) from Simon Jones, who recently left the authority. Bronnie’s initial focus will be on encouraging and supporting clubs to achieve insport accreditation, which highlights that they have the ethos, policies and structures in place to provide quality inclusive opportunities for disabled people.

This post is partly funded by Disability Sport Wales. 

 

Karen Davies, Principal Health Living Officer, said: 

"We are delighted to be working in partnership with the Cardiff & Vale Public Health team to introduce these two new posts into the Council. These posts, along with the existing Disability Sport post, will allow us to focus on increasing opportunities and participation rates amongst targeted groups in our community. The benefits of participation in sport and physical activity are far reaching, impacting on both physical health and mental wellbeing so it is vital that we work to increase participation rates amongst identified groups who would benefit from this positive impact. 

"Elliot, Louis and Bronnie bring a wealth of knowledge to their new roles, have a passion to positively impact on our community members and are keen to spread the word about the benefits of sport and physical activity participation."