Match the Sunflower icons
You’ll need
- Printed copy of the Sunflower icons poster
- Printed copies of Match the Sunflower Icons sheet
- Image of the Sunflower symbol or lanyard
Produced in collaboration with Hidden Disabilities Sunflower.
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There’s also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
- Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
- Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.
Planning and setting up this activity
- If anyone in the group has lived experience of disability, they could share their story if they feel comfortable to. It’s important that no one’s made to share anything they don’t want to, and no one should talk about someone else’s disability unless that person says it’s okay. All discussions should respect people’s privacy, and a person’s disability should never be disclosed without their direct consent.
- This activity uses the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower icons. Print and cut out the cards. There are 22 icons. You could use all of them or you may want to use a selection of them.
- You may want to have an image of the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower symbol, such as on the Sunflower lanyard, to show everyone what it looks like.
- You may wish to tell everyone about the topic in advance of the session.
- You may need to offer reassurance to anyone who may find this topic difficult. Remember to always follow the Yellow Card.
- Find out more about young carers and disability inclusion in Scouts.
Introduce the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower
- Gather everyone together and ask if anyone knows what the Sunflower symbol on a green background means. You could show people the picture of the Sunflower symbol or lanyard.
- Explain that the Sunflower symbol is known as the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower. It’s a special symbol that someone may choose to wear, to let others know that they're disabled. You often can’t tell if someone is disabled just by looking at them, and there are over 900 non-visible conditions or chronic illnesses that Sunflower wearers use the Sunflower for.
- The Sunflower is a way of letting others know that you might need an offer of help, understanding, or just more time, when you're at the shops, school, work, on a bus or train, or anywhere in public.
- Some people might get a personalised Sunflower card that tells people the types of support they need. The cards have icons (small pictures or symbols) on them to show what their needs are and what extra support they might need.
- Tell everyone you’re going to play a matching pairs game to learn more about the icons. If anyone knows what any or all the icons are, they could tell the group.
Match the icons with their meanings
- Ask everyone to get into groups and give each group a set of cards. Ask the groups to try to match the icons with their meanings. You might want to give them a set amount of time to do this.
- When everyone’s finished, or when the time is up, reveal the answers and see which group got the most right. You could see if there were any that people didn’t understand and explain any words or phrases that they might have struggled with. There’s some definitions on this page, which you might find useful.
- Once everyone understands the icons and their descriptions, each group can turn all the cards over, so they can’t see them, then play matching pairs. The person who makes the most correct matches, wins.
- At the end, gather back together and talk through some of the icons. Remind everyone that each individual and their needs are different, so we can't presume what someone might need or think that they may need the same as someone else.
- Ask people why people may have a certain icon and how we or other people could help them. Here's some examples:
- If a Sunflower wearer has 'I have an assistance dog’, it means they have a disability that their dog supports them with, for example, anxiety, PTSD or chronic pain. Or they may be blind or visually impaired and use a guide dog to help them safely and independently get from one place to another. We can help them by not distracting their support dog while it’s working.
- If a Sunflower wear has ‘I sign’ they may have hearing loss or be Deaf, and use a sign language like British Sign Language.
- Audio description - Audio description is a way to help people understand what’s happening in a TV show or film (or other things like plays), if they can’t see it very well or at all. It’s like a narrator who explains what’s happening on screen. You can find out more about audio description on the RNIB website.
- Assistance dog – A specially trained dog, who supports a disabled person to do important and everyday tasks. This could be guiding someone who is blind or partially sighted, letting someone know about a sound they won’t be able to hear, or warning someone that they might be becoming ill. You can find out more about assistance dogs on the Assistance Dogs UK website.
- Assistive listening - Assistive listening is a way to help people hear sounds better in places where there might be a lot of noise or where sounds are hard to hear. It makes the important sounds, louder and easier to hear. An example is a hearing loop, which transmits sound that someone can pick up through their hearing aid. You can find out more about assistive listening systems on the RNID website.
- Braille - Braille is a way to read and write using touch. It’s made up of tiny raised dots that you can feel – it's designed to be read by fingers rather than eyes. It can be used in books, and on signs, packaging and other things. Braille is used by some people who are blind or partially sighted. Find out more about braille on the RNIB website.
- Large print – Large print is when words are printed bigger than usual, to make them easier to read. It can be helpful for people who are blind and have some vision, or are partially sighted. Find out more about large print on the RNIB website.
- Sign – Signing is a visual way of communicating, using things like hand shapes. It might be used by someone who is deaf. Some people use a sign language, like British Sign Language, to communicate, rather than a spoken language. You can find out more about sign language on the NDCS website.
Reflection
This activity was all about learning about disability. We learnt about the wide range of barriers and challenges people can encounter, and the different types of support a disabled person may need.
Did you learn anything new? Is it important that people know that lots of disabilities aren’t visible or easy to spot? Why do you think it might be good for people to learn about disabilities that may not be immediately apparent?
Learning about disability can help build empathy, respect and inclusivity. People often assume that disabilities are obvious, like seeing someone using a wheelchair, but many disabilities are not. This can lead to people making assumptions, and disabled people being unfairly judged or criticised, for example, being told they shouldn’t be using an accessible car parking space or accessible toilet, even though they need this,
We shouldn’t judge or make assumptions about anyone by just looking at them. We can’t tell what a person is experiencing and what challenges they are facing.
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.
- To make this activity easier, you could reduce the amount of icons you give groups to match.
- You could also just give the icon cards to the groups. A volunteer could read out each description, and team’s try to identify the matching icon.
- To make this activity harder, you could give groups more icons to match. You could also add an extra challenge and involve some physical activity, by hiding icons and/or definitions around the meeting place, or including a relay race.
- If you’d like to run the activity in a way that encourages more individual participation and more communication and problem-solving skills, you could give each person a card of either an icon or a definition. People can then pair themselves up with someone who’s got the corresponding icon or definition.
- If anyone in the group may find it difficult to see the icons, encourage people to work together and use words to describe the icon to each other, and discuss what it might mean. For example, one of the icons could be described as “6 dots arranged in a pattern” and another, “the letters A and D next to two curved lines”.
- When running an activity to learn about disability, it's important to consider that someone in your group may have lived experience – they may be disabled or have a friend or family member who is. They may or may not want to share their experiences. Make sure you create a safe and inclusive space, where everyone is comfortable. Encourage open communication, whilst ensuring that everyone is showing care and respect, in line with our Scout Values.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
If you enjoyed this activity, you could find out more about the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower or a particular disability.
On the Sunflower website, you can find information about different disabilities that have few or no visible signs.
Allow time and space for people to share any lived experiences if they want to - people may or may not be happy to talk about their own experiences - but make sure that no one feels singled out or put on the spot.