‘Covid-19 Staying Safe’ from Starfish Labs, helps people with learning difficulties and disabilities to understand the Coronavirus pandemic guidelines and regulations. It features simple guides to wearing a face covering, hand washing and sanitising, and keeping the home clean. Content can be viewed and created in English or Welsh.

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

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 face coverings, their own washing facilities etc. in their own home, school, college or work environment. This makes the app highly effective in conveying information that is recognisable and relevant for individuals who may not identify with generic information that does not show specific items in their own environment.

Using this app you can 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.

In the general guidelines content, the app uses simple cartoons, photographs, videos, voice and Makaton symbols to convey information in an easy-to-understand format. The content can be viewed in English or Welsh.

The images and videos feature real people with learning difficulties demonstrating how to wear different types of face covering, how to dispose of single-use masks, wash re-usable face coverings, how to wash your hands properly, how to use hand sanitiser and clean your home environment 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 2020.