Technical Commission on Youth and Leisure in Central Catalonia

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Efficiency, Health, Sustainability

Technical Commission on Youth and Leisure in Central Catalonia

Compilation of best practices for promoting healthy youth leisure provides support and a roadmap for various entities and administrations that plan and manage popular festivities.

Catalan Government

Spain

Local policy

POLICY OBJECTIVE

Within the framework of the “Interdepartmental and Intersectoral Public Health Plan” (PINSAP), Central Catalonia’s Technical Commission on Youth and Healthy Youth Leisure set out to develop a series of tools providing festivity organizers with a model for healthy youth leisure.

The Commission sought to gather interventions that made it possible to create spaces and activities for healthy leisure at the following levels:

Local: agreeing recommendations to recognize municipalities with responsible alcohol consumption and creating spaces for healthy leisure.
Individual and family: agreeing, listing, and promoting actions empowering young people and families to consume responsibly and avoid rewarding alcohol consumption socially.

The Central Catalonia PINSAP technical commission’s infographic and collection of best practices for promoting healthy youth leisure provide support and a roadmap for various entities and administrations that plan and manage popular festivities. The material also takes account of time and time management as one of the challenges of youth leisure.

The infographic outlines actions to take in planning and managing popular festivities before, during, and after events. It comes with a collection of resources, as examples, to undertake the actions proposed in the infographic.

CONTEXT

Improving health and well-being is a central issue that prompted the Catalan Government to design and implement the PINSAP as a key pillar of the strategy to introduce health in every policy (SeTP). With this approach, actions are undertaken in areas like improving air quality, increasing road safety, and reducing school dropout rates. To make SeTP a reality in every sector, areas, departments, and administrations continue, encourage and catalyze these sectoral actions with impact on community health.

One instrument to develop this participatory model is the consultative and coordinating territorial Councils for Public Health in various health regions of Catalonia. The cross-cutting Councils comprise representatives from the territorial bodies of every department of the Catalan Government and from local authorities, professional associations, the third sector, and academic institutions, among others.

In the framework of the territorial Councils, technical commissions prioritize regional topics based on themes proposed by attending members. One such commission oversees the topic of Youth and Leisure. The technical commission justified its work with the following data:

According to findings from the 2019 Household Survey on Alcohol and Drugs in Spain (EDADES), published April 2021, the average young person in Catalonia begins drinking alcohol at age 16.6 (males at 16.1, females at 16.9).
From 2013 to 2019, individuals who reported drinking alcohol in the previous 12 months were the second most prevalent – up 3.9% since 2017.

POLICY DESCRIPTION

Infographic with recommendations for local administrations and organizations to design and develop healthier and more sustainable nighttime leisure activities that minimize risks and take account of time. Recommendations cover the time before, during, and after events and all phases of leisure.

To adapt the infographic to new needs, we included additional resources like letters, documents, and procedures and, to make the work more useful, designed a dissemination strategy highlighting the most appropriate means and channels to reach local administrations and entities that organize leisure activities.

In the most significant action, the auditorium of the Territorial Delegation of the Catalan Government in Central Catalonia (Palau Firal de Manresa) hosted a joint public presentation of “Youth Leisure is Healthy: Prevention starts before the party” on Tuesday 26 April 2022. All members also disseminated the work through their own official channels. (Article on the Bages County Council news portal: https://www.ccbages.cat/joventutihabitatge/joventut/oci-saludable/.)

Further information on both activities can be found on the website of Catalonia’s Agency of Public Health: https://salutpublica.gencat.cat/ca/sobre_lagencia/Plans-estrategics/pinsap/PINSAP-al-territori/Catalunya-Central/ct-joves-i-oci-saludable/index.html

A subsequently proposed systematic follow-up assessment has not been fully implemented.

KEY ASPECTS

Provides institutional support for a network-driven intersectoral and interdepartmental technical commission of professionals from various organizations and departments of the Catalan Government.
Aims to prevent alcohol consumption in youth and leisure.
Considers the temporal dimension of leisure an area for risk prevention.
Working group of highly motivated, participative and objective-driven professionals from various organizations and areas of expertise.
Network methodology means various document templates are available as resources.
Enables familiarity with working methods, actions, and projects sharing an objective in the territory and, in so doing, facilitates sharing.
Makes it possible to unify criteria and working options with a single concern: youth and healthy leisure.
Health professionals in coordination and leadership positions.

RESULTS

Organizers and planners of youth leisure activities have an infographic summarizing and systematizing the various actions to consider, including before, during, and after events, and offering schedule recommendations.
Recommendations come with a set of resources, including materials permitting adaptation to specific needs, and support and a roadmap in the form of best practices for promoting healthy youth leisure.
An evaluation was designed but has not been implemented. Available process evaluation data: the technical commission of 22 people and 18 entities met 17 times, issued 2 press releases, and held 1 public dissemination session on 26 April 2022. Members of the technical commission also took part in a SWOT analysis.
A press release about the policy can be found here: https://drogues.gencat.cat/ca/detalls/Noticia/Presentacio-del-material-Loci-jove-es-saludable-La-prevencio-comenca-abans-de-la-festa
The video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W4d3f79D_g

Policy's Website

Mª Carme

Colldeforns Oller

Coordinator for Promotion of Health and Community Health

mccolldeforns@gencat.cat

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