Jill Manthorpe, Kritika Samsi, Katharine Orellana & Caroline Green (NIHR ARC South London Social Care theme team)
Most day centres have been closed to regular users during the lockdown triggered by COVID-19 or Coronavirus pandemic from March this year. Social clubs and community centres are allowed to open again from 4th July and day centres are faced with the task to make their services safe and reduce the risks of infection to service users and staff. Yet, to date, day centres have not been issued with any guidance on how to go about ‘unlocking’ their services safely and inviting users back. NIHR ARC South London has co-produced guidance that aims to support managers or volunteer co-ordinators of day centres to plan for a ‘new normal’. We are also working with the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) to help take this further. The guidance draws on existing guidance related to COVID-19, for social care, and relevant guidance, advice, action points for other regulated settings, some of which is also relevant to adult day centres.
‘Helping adult day centres to ‘unlock lockdown is free of charge, can be easily downloaded and printed off. Please follow this link to find the resource www.kcl.ac.uk/scwru/res/ARC-SL/unlock-lockdown.aspx. It has two parts:
- Part 1 covers some of the practicalities of re-opening, including infection control, communications, supporting service users, carers, staff and volunteers, and yourself, some final things people are likely to want to consider doing before re-opening; and there is a user-friendly, practical scenario-planning tool. At the end are source documents and further resources. The reader is prompted to think about the specifics of their own activities.
- Part 2 is an editable Word document that aims to prompt reflection on what has happened during lockdown, what else you may wish to think about, the process of moving forwards and any learning that will be helpful for the future. Individual sections can be completed according to the stage you are in.
We would really appreciate feedback on the document’s usefulness.
We encourage you to distribute this resource.
These are really helpful documents. As a Trustee of Age UK York I will be circulating them to my fellow board members for discussion as we plan reopening of local day centres
Thanks Jenny, it is good to hear this, let us know if you would like to talk further – Age UK York was somewhere I knew when a student in York, good to hear it is flourishing – probably in slightly smarter premises than when I knew it. Do join our Day Centre Research Forum if you would like to hear more of other day centre activities.