The Copenhagen Consensus Conference 2016: children, youth, and physical activity in schools and during leisure time

From 4 to 7 April 2016, 24 researchers from 8 countries and from a variety of academic disciplines gathered in Snekkersten, Denmark, to reach evidence-based consensus about physical activity in children and youth, that is, individuals between 6 and 18 years. Physical activity is an overarching term that consists of many structured and unstructured forms within school and out-of-school-time contexts, including organised sport, physical education, outdoor recreation, motor skill development programmes, recess, and active transportation such as biking and walking. This consensus statement presents the accord on the effects of physical activity on children's and youth's fitness, health, cognitive functioning, engagement, motivation, psychological well-being and social inclusion, as well as presenting educational and physical activity implementation strategies. The consensus was obtained through an iterative process that began with presentation of the state-of-the art in each domain followed by plenary and group discussions. Ultimately, Consensus Conference participants reached agreement on the 21-item consensus statement.

Brief Psychotherapy with Children in a Specialist School: An Exploration of the Underlying Issues for Children and Mainstream Schools

This thesis explores brief psychotherapy with children on placement at a specialist school setting, as part of an on-site, child psychotherapy outreach provision. The study sought to explore two research questions concerning the themes that could emerge in brief work with children and how these themes could be discussed in relation to the understanding formed by their mainstream school teachers. A qualitative research design was used to investigate these questions. The methods used to collect data were case studies, concerning the brief psychotherapy with 4 boys, aged 7 years, and and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teachers. Thematic analysis was used to explore the data. The themes that were derived from the analysis were described in detail. The research found that brief work has considerable benefit for children and mainstream schools. Through the brief work intervention, the children all made significant progress in all areas of their lives a school. Contributions that the research makes to related fields, the implications that it has for policy and practice and recommendations for future research were all discussed.