This week marks the launch of the Easter Essex ActivAte programme (HAF), now in its fifth year and firmly established across Essex and Thurrock. With over 230 clubs—including Primary, Secondary, SEND Specialist, Mental Wellbeing Specialist, and Youth Specialist clubs—2025 is poised to be the programme’s biggest delivery year yet!
Essex ActivAte was born off the back of a Holiday Activity and Food pilot programme, funded by the Department for Education and delivered by Local Authorities across the Country. Active Essex managed the programme on behalf of Essex County Council and in its second year, also managed the programme for Thurrock Council.
The Essex ActivAte programme started in Essex and Thurrock with around 80 clubs in Easter 2021, working with Sports Clubs and After School Wrap a Round clubs to deliver clubs during the holidays for children on income related free school meals. Initially, the promotion of clubs proved challenging with no way of checking eligibility and trying to navigate promoting the clubs without creating any stigma around the brand.
Emerging from the pandemic’s challenges, the team had to deal with social distancing guidelines and implement other conditions that the government imposed on our ways of working. We even spent a week in a warehouse packing food parcels and activity packs to deliver out to families, during which bought every Chorizo in supermarkets and created our own shortage. This aside, the clubs proved extraordinarily successful with word of mouth spreading fast and following the lockdown, children were keen to get out of the house and start socialising again.
Fast forward to 2024 and Essex ActivAte regularly celebrates how far it has come with learnings from great reporting and now using a central booking system to check eligibility and conducting a detailed evaluation following each holiday period. The programme has proudly supported and provided lifelong experiences for around 30,000 young people and thousands of families across Essex and Thurrock.
The Essex ActivAte programme is now so much more than just a holiday programme for children. Collaborating with partners across the Essex County Council system, Local Authorities and locally trusted organisations, the programme now offers an opportunity to support children and families in so many more ways.
Aligning with the Public Health Core20plus5 objectives we have seen clubs deliver added extras like Oral health training to the children attending, handing out dental packs and brushing calendars to the children and their siblings. Children’s mental health is a key objective, with Mental Health Ambassadors in place at every club and mental wellbeing specialist clubs for those children and their families who need a little extra support in socialising with others. We have gathered from parent surveys that the mental wellbeing of the child and their parent/s has positively increased by 80% which is a significant improvement on previous years.
Reaching such a large cohort of children, the team have been able to educate on sun and water safety, the importance of climate issues, encouraging active travel with courses such as Bikeability and the loan of scooters and protective equipment, as well as extensive activities in food education and trying new foods and recipes to support their health.
Dr William Bird (Chair of Active Essex) talks passionately about the health impacts on loneliness and isolation with the benefits of belonging and togetherness, and for me this is one of the biggest impacts the Essex ActivAte programme has had on not only the young people attending, but also their families. Holiday periods be a lonely time for some young people, and evaluation has shown that attending the clubs during the holidays has encouraged new friendships and improved the attendance rates back to school following the school breaks. If we had to pick a favourite Essex ActivAte programme, it would be the Winter placements, which provide our clubs with the chance to put on hundreds of Christmas parties, Winter Wonderland community events, Theatre Shows and not forgetting hundreds of Santa visits for families across the County.
Parents and guardians have also had the opportunity to come together and develop their skills, allowing them to become positive role models for their children. With Volunteering opportunities and training courses, such as the Essex County Council Multiply Maths course, they feel like they are valued and an important asset in their communities.
With past and present global and national events always in our news, I feel like the inequalities gap is widening, and it is during Holiday times and Children Activities that this becomes very noticeable with what families can and cannot afford. Some children can go on extravagant holidays or visit theme parks whereas others spend their time in the local park or in their bedrooms on their mobile phones or consoles.
Essex ActivAte Clubs provide a universal offer, bringing children together whether attending a funded space or a paid for space, and gives them a chance to make fantastic memories together. Whether that is a visit from a Disney Character, Horse Riding, Swimming or Family Inflatable fun days, these activities pull that inequalities gap closer together and make Communities thrive.
For those older children who spend a lot of time bored and out in the community, the clubs have been a lifeline in changing behaviours, reducing anti-social activity, and giving them the tools to become young leaders with positive outlooks for employment in their future.
As I reflect back with pride on the achievements of Essex ActivAte and how the communities have flourished using this funding to elevate their feeling of worth and belonging, my biggest fear is that Government will decide to cut this funding along with other drastic decisions it has made, and the families who have come to rely on the Holiday Programme are left without support. It is important for us at Active Essex and Local Councils to continue to support these amazing delivery organisations to become self-sustainable allowing them to carry on the great work without having to rely on the Department for Education funding to exist.
