Place-based health: change the people to change the system.

Together an Active Future (TaAF) is a place-based collective of change leaders from across organisations (local government, health, education, voluntary, faith and leisure). A Sport England place-based delivery partner, its uniqueness lies in its nonhierarchic, cross-organisational and shared role model structure across 6 districts in the northwest of England. TaAF aims to establish locally driven cross-policy consideration of tackling physical activity inequalities in a place.
Whole-systems, place-based activity has to date involved distributed leadership, collaboration across and within organisations, creative engagement and accessibly communicating science. Central to this approach is to work with local people to co-create meaningful solutions, and challenge societal structures (including cross-sector politics, policy, and practice), and cultural norms for long-lasting change. A differentiated approach of 6 local, people-led programs; 5 universal programs (schools, madrassah, social prescribing, leadership and football therapy); and 5 targeted programs (public health, disability, family hubs, strategic leadership and campaigns) are currently active.
A combined approach of embedded process evaluation (Learning Pods, Participatory workshops, Ripple Effect Mapping, and stories of significant change) and multiple researcher-led methods (qualitative and quantitative) with multiple academic partners (University of Liverpool, Edge Hill University, University of Lancaster, University of Glasgow) are deployed to better understand how, and if our approaches to systems change in our places are working
A focus on changing the people to change the system, through different approaches to local or system leadership at any level can be achieved through a series of enablers: relationship building, investing in strengths, connection, brave leadership and social learning.

Sport England grant of £7M for the Accelerator phase of the initiative (2021-2024). Many hyper-local programs receive some additional local investment or in-kind funding from host organisations. TaAF is currently funded until Dec 2025 but is expected to receive further funding to continue through 2027.