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We're working with Open Active to develop a national directory of activity providers offering opportunities to support women to stay active throughout pregnancy and beyond. We're sharing their blog, below, to highlight the work going on behind the scenes and we can't wait to bring you news of future developments.
Our CEO, Dr Marlize DeVivo, said, "This project is one mammoth undertaking but the potential impact of linking women to opportunities to be active throughout their childbearing years, cannot be understated."
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As Open Active evolves, we want to refine the initiative’s approach to achieve greater social impact and meet the needs of a wider range of users. Over the past year we have been working to convene new, or existing, groups of people or organisations that are interested in exploring the potential of OpenActive within a specific thematic area or sector.
One of the organisations we have been collaborating with in recent months is The Active Pregnancy Foundation, a registered charity dedicated to breaking down barriers to engagement with physical activity during the preconception, pregnancy and postnatal life stages.
The Active Pregnancy Foundation is interested in the idea of developing a national directory of activity providers offering opportunities to support women to stay active throughout pregnancy and beyond.
The data has the potential to be used by health professionals, Active Partnerships and local authorities. To enable this there are two main challenges:
What additional data requirements are needed that aren’t currently covered by the OpenActive specifications?
Mapping of the data — who holds the required data and how can we support those organisations and individuals to open their data?
To help define the data requirements we recently hosted an interactive workshop with The Active Pregnancy Foundation and a selected working group of their partners. During the online session, we had interesting and wide-ranging discussions on data related to activities, the organisers of the activities, and the places where the activities take place. Areas highlighted by the attendees included:
assurances about the safety of activities,
the experience and qualifications of coaches and instructors,
the availability of relevant amenity features such as breastfeeding and bottle warming facilities.
The discussion will continue with a follow-up session at the next OpenActive Adoption and Engagement Forum (AEF) on Wednesday 1 May from 1pm to 2pm. The AEF is an open community forum that brings together everyone involved in advocating for OpenActive, to share progress and look for opportunities to collaborate.
There will be a summary of the recent workshop, and a discussion of recommended actions under two categories:
Amendments and additions to, or clarifications on, the OpenActive specifications which can then be taken to the OpenActive W3C Community Group.
Areas for consideration by the wider sector, outside the scope of OpenActive.
If you are interested in joining the session then the AEF meeting details are available on the OpenActive Community Calendar, or please email hello@openactive.io for more information.