Conclusion
Overall, educator-reported daily time provided for children to be physically active did not change as a result of the Play Active intervention. However, there was a significant increase in director-reported uptake of physical activity policy practices by intervention services. In addition, the intervention resulted in all services establishing an evidence-based physical activity policy. Play Active was feasible, had generally high reach, and was considered acceptable by ECEC service directors and educators. The short implementation period and contextual barriers beyond our control (i.e., COVID-19 and staff turnover) limited the ability of ECEC services to create systemic changes and for the evaluation measures to detect changes in daily time provided for children’s physical activity. Despite Play Active being a well implemented intervention, further research is needed to ascertain the longer-term effects of the intervention on educator behaviour and children’s physical activity. Future ECEC policy-based research should incorporate assessment over a longer implementation period, consider how to better engage educators to undertake relevant professional development and training, and more effectively address the multi-level barriers to physical activity policy implementation. Future research should also investigate the scalability potential of Play Active, given the positive physical activity practice change findings.