Jason Feavers
Specialist Team
My primary focus is on human health and wellbeing. I am currently a project manager at Rethink Mental Illness on a Sport England funded project to understand system level barriers to physical activity for people severely affected by mental illness, and co-produce interventions to address these barriers.
Previous roles have included working as a Healthcare Professional Engagement Facilitator with Cancer Research UK. Through this role I developed partnerships and worked closely with primary and secondary care stakeholders, and third sector organisations to support behaviour change interventions around cancer prevention and early diagnosis of cancer. I have also worked in local government public health at City of York Council in a programme development role.
It became evident that many interventions lacked a solid evidence-based framework for design and implementation, prompting me to complete an MSc in Behaviour Change for Health and Wellbeing with the University of Derby. During this time, I conducted research exploring the correlation between mindfulness and physical activity adherence, refining my approach to emphasise the role of emotion and compassion in behaviour change.
So much emphasis is often placed on behaviour change at an individual level, yet many societal challenges, including climate change, obesity and ‘lifestyle’ medical conditions can only be solved through system level change. A lot of my work now focuses on Implementation Science and how we can co-produce system level change. For individual level behaviour change I apply a compassion focused approach and integrate techniques, including teaching mindfulness and functional breathing, to reduce negative emotions and to foster positive goals and values.
A Chat with Jason
Tell us a little bit about you and your journey into behaviour change?
My journey began within the fitness industry as a qualified personal trainer and specialist exercise instructor with qualifications in exercise referral, working with clients managing various health conditions such as cardiac rehab and cancer exercise. There is so much evidence about the benefits of physical activity for preventing and managing a range of long-term health conditions, yet so many people struggle to become physically active or maintain levels of physical activity. Working in the fitness industry gave me a basic knowledge of behaviour change models including the Transtheoretical Model, goal setting techniques and approaches such as motivational interviewing.
I subsequently took up a role managing a city-wide exercise referral scheme within a public health team, which provided valuable insights into wider public health and wellbeing programmes, and system level change.
As well as being a passionate lifelong learner I also developed a career teaching others, initially within the fitness industry, tutoring instructor training and exercise referral qualifications. I have taught fitness qualifications on a freelance basis for a number of fitness providers as well as behaviour change courses for the British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine and the Royal Society for Public Health.
A desire to make a difference and improve health at a wider level has shaped my journey, where I’ve been involved in developing a range of behaviour change interventions.
Why does the science of behaviour change matter?
The application of a theoretical approach to behaviour change interventions has been shown to identify additional barriers and levers that non-theoretical approaches can often miss. Using a scientific approach enables us to gain a greater understanding of what behaviour change techniques are most likely to work in a specific context, and to keep adding to the scientific evidence.
What is the most inspiring behaviour change intervention you have come across and why?
Fairly early on in my behaviour change career, I was introduced to behavioural scientists at the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) who have done some incredible work in patient safety. This has included interventions that save lives, such as reducing risk of feeding into misplaced nasogastric tubes. The approach used, based on the Theoretical Domains Framework, has inspired so much of the work I have subsequently been involved in which has included some joint working with AHSN on improving primary care referral behaviour for potential cancers.
What’s your vision for behaviour change for the next five years?
The real experts in behaviour are the people with lived experience of the behaviour that we are trying to change. I would like to see more focus on true co-production where experts by experience work as equal partners alongside experts by training, to understand barriers and co-produce solutions. This is an area that I am fortunate to already be working in and feel it will become a much more integral part of behaviour change in the future.
Top tip for individuals or organisations getting started with behaviour change?
Firstly, it is so important to have a compassionate approach and understand that change can be difficult. Gaining a full understanding of the problem is key, and an evidence-based approach is the best way to achieve positive behaviour change.
The whole team at HBCL are driven by a desire to drive social change. Working with a range of experts with experience in human behaviour change from different perspectives, but with a similar ethos, opens up so many opportunities for new strategies and approaches.