Advice on adapting activities

 Controls and mitigation: If you can split the group into smaller self-contained groups for activities it will reduce the risk of spread.    

• When you split into smaller groups they should be as spread out across the meeting place as they can be.  
• Leaders could rotate with their groups between activities, rather than stay at one activity while groups move round.  
• At the start of each activity, leaders should check that they still have the whole group with them.   

 Controls and mitigations: Keeping hands clean reduces the risk of spread  

• Insert hand cleaning into instructions at appropriate points, e.g.: after touching shared surfaces and equipment, before and after handling food and drinks.  
• As a minimum, everyone should wash their hands or sanitise them on arrival, before departure and at least once an hour during meetings.  

Controls and mitigations:

• Ideally each young person has their own set of equipment and it’s cleaned before use by others.    
• Where that is not practical then sharing within a smaller group is better than sharing between everyone  
• For equipment touched intensively with the hands, e.g. compasses, scissors, cooking utensils, section members should be given one each. Less frequently touched equipment (e.g. most games equipment) can be shared.  
• Minimise hand contact with equipment, e.g. could a ball game involve kicking the ball rather than throwing it?  
• Whenever shared equipment has been used, a hand hygiene break should be included.    
• Because of the need for cleaning between users, meeting programmes that rotate around multiple sets of equipment in a session are less practical than longer activities using equipment for the full session.  
• Frequently touched equipment should be cleaned before being put back into storage.    
• Where practical, equipment should be cleaned at the meeting location to avoid virus transmission in transit  

Controls and mitigations:

• Don’t have a group huddled round a table face-to-face to do an activity. Consider alternative formats, e.g.:   
  - Group works in a circle, spread out by the distancing guideline applying at the time  
  - Or group works in two lines back to back  
• Plan in advance how to help a child that is struggling to follow instructions, without a leader moving into the distancing zone to intervene: e.g.:  
  - Coach from outside the distancing area  
  - Demonstrate from a distance with your own set of equipment   
  - Show a video of the activity on a phone 
• Get a neighbouring young person to demonstrate 
  It’s not worth taking the risk of going too close to solve this sort of problem.    

• Separate guidance on first aid is available to explain the trade-off between distancing and providing necessary help.  

Keep activities as short as we can, thinking about the following:   

• Could the activity be simplified?   
• Could more up-front preparation by leaders reduce the time it takes the young people to complete the activity, without diluting their learning?    
• Could the activity be finished off at home?  E.g. make something in the meeting but do the decorating at home? 

As part of the planning for the activity, think through:   

• What you will do if young people leave their groups . 
• What you would do if young people don’t follow social distancing instructions within their groups.

• Align with local schools’ practice on whether artwork and craft projects can be taken home.  
• Materials for craft projects should not be brought from home to the meeting place, e.g.: recycling for junk modelling.  Consider doing projects like this using video meetings.