COVID-19: Social Space

‘Covid-19: Social Space’ from Starfish Labs helps people with learning difficulties and disabilities to understand Social Distancing guidelines and regulations. It features simple guides to social distancing, support bubbles, indoors and outdoors guidelines and video information on social distancing in public places, complementing the first app in this series: Covid-19: Staying Safe. Content can be viewed and created in English or Welsh.

The app includes guidance and Makaton symbol content developed in collaboration with educationalists from a leading UK special educational needs college.

Using this app you can also easily create a new guide to any aspect of rules and guidelines under Covid-19 that are relevant to the user’s own circumstances, your local lockdown tiers, or regional variations in guidance during the pandemic. Your custom content is stored on your own device and does not require WiFi to access it once you have downloaded the app.

To make the content highly relevant to the individual’s own understanding or level of learning difficulty, the app features the ability for admin users (e.g. a parent, carer or teacher) to upload your own content relevant to the individual – using images of their own support bubble, types of signs they might see, how far apart people should stay etc. in their own locality and their own home, school, college or work environment. This makes the app highly effective in conveying information that is recognisable and relevant for individuals with learning difficulties who may not identify with generic information that does not show specific items in their own environment.

In the general guidelines content, the app uses simple cartoons, videos, voice and Makaton symbols to convey information in an easy-to-understand format.

The video features real people with learning difficulties demonstrating social distancing in real-life situations, with reminders about wearing masks, hand washing, hand sanitisers and surface cleaning to help to stay safe.

The content is based on general UK Government guidelines and has been developed, simplified and tested in collaboration with staff, residents and students at Derwen College – an Ofsted Excellent rated Special Educational Needs College.

The app uses Makaton symbols - © The Makaton Charity - with Makaton content supplied by the college.

This app has been part funded by Welsh Government. Starfish Labs acknowledge the support of Welsh Government and Derwen College in the creation of this app. All imagery, graphics, voice content, workflow system and development © Copyright Starfish Labs 2021.