Safe Winter Walking Campaign
The Safe Winter Walking Campaign was created by the South West Ontario Fall Prevention Network. The campaign provides a variety of different awareness activities that can be used and adapted throughout the fall and winter seasons. The purpose of this activity is to promote physical activity throughout the year. Prevent falls by staying active all year round and being safe while doing so!
Organization/Sponsor Contact: Marguerite Thomas (mthomas@parachute.ca)
Type of Activity: Campaign
Target Audience: Older adults and caregivers
Sector: Community-dwelling older adults
Costs: There may be printing costs depending on which activities you decide to host
Timeline for Activity: Campaign planning- summer months. Campaign launch: fall and winter months.
Materials, Resources and People Needed for the Activities:
Background Research and Planning
Literature Search: Up-to-date academic articles, web sources, and newspaper articles on the topic of safe winter walking, provided by the Loop Knowledge Centre.
Article: This article was written for Boomer magazine (pages 8-10). Get in touch with your local news outlet and write a piece about your topic of interest.
Public Education and Awareness Building
PowerPoint Presentation: A generic presentation that can be adapted for your local area contact information, special considerations and resources.
Fact Sheet: A simple, printable fact sheet for older adults with tips on staying active and preventing injury during the cold winter months.
Poster and Brochure: This poster and brochure were created by the Southwest Ontario Fall Prevention Network and are available as PDFs. Ask permission prior to distributing these- you can also personalize the posters below by downloading the InDesign file and adapting it with your own local information, logo and stock photos. InDesign is a graphic design software from Adobe (download a free trial here).
Safe Winter Walking Display: Detailed instructions on how to create an effective Safe Winter Walking display (board, handouts, raffle, demonstrations, take-home samples) for your next event. Inexpensive and a big hit with the public! These instructions were posted as a discussion on Loop.
Other examples of Safe Winter Walking activities:
Snow Angels: Snow Angels provides a way for older adults in Stratford to request assistance with shovelling. Snow Angels (i.e. community members) register to be volunteer snow shovellers and get connected to older adults who request the service.
Like the idea? Check out the website and see if you can start a similar program in your community.
A short webinar outlining instructions to implement this activity was done on July 9th, 2019. The webinar recording can be viewed on YouTube and you can access the slide deck here.
Suggested Action Steps to run your campaign
Action Step 1: Background Research and Planning
- Read and understand more about safe winter walking.
- Start to plan your activities. Are you planning a public presentation or display? If so, where? Do you want to provide handouts? Some venues include: community centres, libraries, community fairs or school fairs.
Action Step 2:Public Education and Awareness Building
- Below are examples of some activities you can implement throughout your campaign.
- Promote your campaign activities. Reach out to community members, community centres, and other groups who you think may be interested in your campaign.
Action Step 3: Evaluation
- You can evaluate your activities by counting the number of handouts you gave, or how many people attended your presentation, or how many contacts you gained from your campaign.
- You can also distribute a questionnaire to measure the level of satisfaction with the activity. See participant evaluation template here to customize.
Running this activity in a virtual setting:
Promote This Activity Online
You can share and promote an activity through social media posts and/or email.
- If you’re sharing a social media post to promote your activity, follow best practices like using shorter captions, quality images, hashtags and a clear call-to-action.
- If you’re emailing to promote your activity, make sure your email is thorough on what the activity is about and how people can register for it. You can use free tools like Canva to customize its design.