​Danish NEET schools were established in 2019 to prepare youth for education or obtain unskilled employment. NEET is an acronym for “Not in Employment, Education or Training”. The NEET schools (In Danish Forberende Grunduddannelse (FGU)) are a flexible educational program that targets NEET youth (ages 16 to 25). The majority of students come from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds and are considered a population at high risk for developing noncommunicable diseases later in life.

Participatory systems interventions have the potential to create sustainable changes to complex health problems, such as promoting physical activity among NEET youth. The approach makes sense of the underlying “system” that drives unhealthy behavior by adding dynamic connections between numerous factors to a connected whole – and theorize how changes may reverberate through the system. Using participatory methods to model physical activity correlated determinants and their physical, commercial, sociocultural, and political contexts, the aim of the systems approach applied in this project is to initiate a system change, which is effective and sustainable.

Participatory systems approaches have already underpinned internationally successful community interventions and are in the process of being adapted to a Danish context. In this study we bring a participatory dynamic systems approach together with the Health Promoting Schools framework.

Specifically, the intervention consists of “Group Model Building” workshops I, II, and III. During the first two workshops, local stakeholders (e.g., staff, managers, the municipality, and students) cocreate a systems map (aka a causal loop diagram) to obtain a shared understanding of causes and drivers for inactivity among NEET school youth. During the final workshop, a broader group of community stakeholders, expected n=40-50, (also including e.g., parents, and local sports club), refine and adapt the systems map. Based on the systems map, the stakeholders identify feasible actions that will impact the identified system in a positive matter, i.e., actions that will increase PA/maintain PA. People with decision power partake to balance resources with the suggested actions. The output of workshop III is the formation of local working groups that will work to develop, implement, and run/support the chosen action.

The intervention is a feasibility study and will take place at three Danish NEET schools. Data from national surveys among students  and among staff and managers  will guide the recruitment of intervention sites. 

Aim

The intervention will test the feasibility of a participatory systems intervention to promote physical activity among Danish NEET school students.

The associated research will contribute new knowledge regarding:

If the intervention is feasible, we will develop a (potentially sustainable) model for promoting physical activity for Danish NEET youth to be implemented at the national scale. 

Collaborators 

To increase the prospects of national implementation (and to ensure research is adapted to context), the intervention project is followed by an expert panel. The experts are stakeholders from the Danish NEET schools, municipalities, and ministries, including:  

• FGU Danmark [The Danish NEET school interest organization]
• Uddannelsesforbundet [The union representing staff at NEET schools]
• The Ministry of Children and Education
• The Danish Heart Foundation 
• Sundbynetværket [A network to promote health and prevention at the municipal level]
• The municipality of Copenhagen
• Center For Forebyggelse i praksis [An organization to promote health and prevention at the municipal level]
• The Nationale Institute for Public Health
• The Danish Committee for Health Education 
• EVA [Denmark’s Evaluation Institute, which has monitored the NEET schools]
• BørneUngeLiv [An organization that conducts national health and well-being surveys among youth]
• University College Copenhagen 

The intervention project is funded by the Danish Heart Foundation. 

Updated 7 June 2023