Obesity

Health4EUkids – WP4–WP5–WP6: the Patras meeting (August 2025)

On August 28–29, 2025, the third in-person meeting of Work Packages (WP) 4, 5, and 6 of the Joint Action (JA) Health4EUkids was held in Patras, with the participation of partners from twelve European countries: Italy, Slovenia, Finland, Croatia, Spain, Malta, Lithuania, Greece, Poland, Portugal, and Hungary. The meeting represented a crucial moment of exchange on the results achieved so far and on the future perspectives for the sustainability and transferability of the “Smart Family” and “Grunau Moves” best practices.

During the two days, discussions focused on:

• the degree of integration of good practices into local and national contexts
• opportunities for transferability, scalability, and sustainability within health, education, and social systems
• lessons learned from implementation
• the definition of key messages and recommendations to be addressed to the European Commission

The meeting combined plenary sessions, networking moments, and thematic group work.

As part of the WP4 activities, an in-depth reflection on transferability and sustainability was carried out through two participatory methodologies: the World Café, aimed at collaboratively exploring sustainability perspectives at both local and national levels, and the Role Wheel, designed to collect and co-create key messages to be addressed to the European Commission regarding the future of the best practices implemented within the project.

The World Café

The World Café, structured through a discussion based on guiding questions across three consecutive rounds, enabled the emergence of shared visions, differences in approach, and operational proposals, later summarized in a plenary session.

Main findings:

• Presentation on the World Café and main findings (1,9 kb)
• Summary table of main findings (pdf 97 kb).

The Role Wheel

In the Role Wheel exercise, participants were invited to take on the roles of different stakeholders (policy makers, healthcare professionals, parents, school representatives, etc.), exploring the transferability and sustainability of actions from multiple perspectives through guiding questions. The proposals were then synthesized and presented in plenary.

Main findings:

• Presentation on the Role Wheel and main findings (pdf 1,1 kb)
• Summary table of main findings (pdf 90 kb).

The meeting represented an important opportunity to contribute to the formulation of the final recommendations of the JA Health4EUkids, integrating the outcomes of the DELPHI process and the Policy Brief within the overall framework of project recommendations. This work was made possible through a mutual learning process among the participating countries. The resulting recommendations will support policy makers in strengthening interinstitutional collaborations and public health policies.