We would like to invite you to participate in Play Active. Play Active works with services to improve children’s physical activity levels, health and development whilst attending ECEC. You have been asked to take part in this project because you are an educator at an ECEC service in Western Australia, Queensland or South Australia.
The project is being conducted by The Kids Research Institute Australia in collaboration with our partners (Early Childhood Australia, YMCA, Play Matters Collective, Health and Wellbeing Queensland, Australian Childcare Alliance SA, QLD & WA, Goodstart Early Learning WA, Cancer Council WA, WA Dept of Local Government Sport and Cultural Industries).
The research team conducting this project include the following investigators: A/Professor Hayley Christian, Professor Stewart Trost, Professor Carol Maher, Professor Patti-Jean Naylor, Professor Jasper Schipperijn, A/Prof Kevin Murray, Dr Ian Li, Dr Andrea Nathan, Dr Matthew McLaughlin, Emeritus Professor Adrian Bauman, Mr Todd Dawson, Jayne Kaiko and research staff, Jenny Beer and Corinne Zadow.

What is it about?
Physical activity is important for children’s health, well-being and development. A large proportion of young children are not reaching the recommended level of physical activity needed for their health and development. ECEC services provide an ideal opportunity to improve children’s physical activity levels. ECEC nutrition, sleep and sun protection policies are required in many state and territory regulations. Yet, policies around how much physical activity children should achieve whilst at ECEC are missing.
This project builds on years of research involving extensive consultation with stakeholders to develop an evidence based ECEC physical activity policy template and recommendations. Play Active is a physical activity policy program for ECEC providers to help ensure children at your service are engaging in enough physical activity and energetic play, every day. We would like to invite you to participate in Play Active.

What does it involve?
Step 1: Register at www.playactive.org.au
Step 2: Complete some brief online professional development to become certified in Play Active.
Step 3: Invite your Director to register to become an accredited Play Active service.
To assist us in evaluating the Play Active program, we will ask you to complete a short (5 minute) online survey. The questions will be about the amount and type of physical activity children at your service do. We will ask you to do this survey at the start and at 12 and 24 months (you will receive an email with the link to the short survey).

Voluntary Participation and Withdrawal from the Study
Participation in this project is completely voluntary. If you decide to participate and then later change your mind, you are able to withdraw from the study without explanation and without consequence by contacting play.active@telethonkids.org.au. The data will be destroyed after withdrawal unless otherwise agreed.
Educators can take part in the intervention if their centre director does not register their centre. The educator intervention involves completing the free online professional development training via the website. Once an educator completes their training, they are prompted to invite their director to become involved in the program, however it is not compulsory for directors to join.

Your privacy
Information that identifies anyone will be removed from the data collected. All de-identified data will be stored securely at UWA and The Kids Research Institute Australia and can only be accessed by the research team. The data will be stored for a minimum period of 7 years, after which it will be destroyed. The identity of participants or centers will not be disclosed at any time. The data will be used only for this project and future related sub-studies and will not be used in any or future research without first obtaining explicit written consent from participants.
The findings of this study will be used to refine the self-assessment tool. It is also anticipated that at least one journal article and a presentation/report will arise from this research. Your name and identifying details will not be used in any publication arising out of the research without your consent.

Possible Benefits
By participating in Play Active there may be increased opportunities for children at your service to be active which is beneficial for their health and development. Participants may access a summary of the study results by emailing play.active@telethonkids.org.au.

Possible Risks and Risk Management Plan
There are no foreseeable risks associated with this study.

Contacts
If you would like to participate or discuss any aspect of this study, please feel free to contact Associate Professor Hayley Christian or email play.active@telethonkids.org.au.

Approval to conduct this research has been provided by the University of Western Australia, in accordance with its ethics review and approval procedures. Any person considering participation in this research project, or agreeing to participate, may raise any questions or issues with the researchers at any time. In addition, any person not satisfied with the response of researchers may raise ethics issues or concerns, and may make any complaints about this research project by contacting the Human Ethics office at UWA on (08) 6488 4703 or by emailing to humanethics@uwa.edu.au. All research participants are entitled to retain a copy of any Participant Information Form and/or Participant Consent Form relating to this research project.