Process evaluation outcomes
Fidelity of the six implementation support strategies was high. Forty intervention services were provided with the physical activity policy template and all services were provided with the six implementation support strategies (two services were not contacted for a reminder to return their policy as they completed this prior to the first contact).Reach of the policy, policy personalisation, and policy review within services were high, with 74.5% of educators knowing their service had a policy, 98.7% of educators knowing where to find their policy, 100% of intervention services personalising their policy, and 100% of services meeting minimum policy criteria. Use of the energetic play assessment tool was also high, with 80.0% of services using it at baseline and 75.0% at post-intervention. However, only about half (53.6%) of educators reported using the resource guide, and of these, most (57.9%) used it less than weekly. Of the educators who reported using the resource guide, 68% found it to be very useful or extremely useful. In addition, of the 520 intervention educators signed up to the professional development website (Provider 1), 11.0% enrolled in the training and only 5.4% completed it (website analytics). Although, 39.1% of educators reported at post-intervention they had used the online training. One-third of intervention services had at least one educator complete the professional development training. No services completed the service-level professional development (Provider 2). Most services (87.5%) were able to be contacted at the mid-point of implementation to discuss their progress.Most directors agreed or strongly agreed educators in their service thought Play Active was useful (75.0%), were willing to engage with Play Active (85.0%), understood the Play Active policy recommendations (82.5%), were confident to apply the recommendations (75.0%), and were enthusiastic about Play Active (62.5%). For educators who reported using the resource guide or online professional development, the majority rated the materials useful.Overall satisfaction and acceptability of the Play Active policy intervention and implementation support was generally high at post-intervention: 82.9% of educators and 77.5% of directors were satisfied or very satisfied with Play Active. Though 58% of directors found Play Active very useful or extremely useful. Finally, intervention educator awareness of the Play Active policy recommendations was very high, with educators correctly answering a median 9.0 out of 10 statements (IQR = 2.0, 