Adventures at home - what's next?

Back in 2020, creating Adventures at home was our way of responding to an unknowable problem.

When the first lockdown was announced, we didn’t know how long restrictions on social interaction would be necessary. We didn’t know how long schools would be closed for. We didn’t know what the impact of such a huge global event would be on our organisation, our members, our girls and their families.

But we did know that we needed to provide whatever support we could. As it became clearer that the effects of the pandemic were not going away quickly, we knew that we needed to do our bit not just for our girls, but for children and young people all over the UK who were in need.

So we created Adventures at home, our online hub packed with activities, challenges and virtual games, along with wellbeing and resilience resources. We made all of it freely available on our website, so that any family in need could benefit from what we had to offer.

Adventures at home in 2021

Sadly, we started 2021 in yet another lockdown. We know that Adventures at home has become a key resource enabling volunteers to keep guiding going in challenging circumstances. So, we’ve decided to continue releasing new Adventures at home content on a regular basis. Here’s a round-up of what we’ve made and are continuing to develop, and when you can expect to see more.

Activity videos

We’ve created a series of follow-along tutorials to bring Girlguiding programme activities to life. These can be used in lots of different ways, whether that's by leaders in virtual unit meetings, or by girls experiencing the programme at home.

We will continue to release new activity videos for every section on a monthly basis. The first release of 2021 will be at the end of January, and they will continue to be released at the end of each month. 

Virtual games

These are 5-10 minute game ideas, sourced from leaders and designed to be used in a digital setting.

We will continue to release more game ideas for all ages on a monthly basis. We released the first virtual games of 2021 at the start of January, and will have more to come at the beginning of February. From March onwards, we will be releasing them at the end of the month, at the same time as the activity videos. 

Also, keep an eye on our social channels for more short activities to share with your girls and their families. 

Challenges

In 2020, we released new challenges every month that focused on a different theme, from inclusion, to adventure, to guiding traditions, to fundraising and onto stargazing. They were designed to provide fun new adventures and challenges that everyone could do by themselves at home.

In 2021, we will continue to develop new challenges, but these will be released quarterly instead of monthly. Our first challenge for 2021 will be released in March, and will be all about wellbeing.

Leader support

We know it’s hard to think of ways to adapt the programme to be online or socially distanced, making sure that girls are still having a great time. We’re trying to make it easier for our leaders to transition to virtual and socially distanced guiding during this time by reviewing the whole programme and thinking of ways to adapt each and every activity, so you don’t have to.

We’re continuing to develop our leader support offer by developing more guidance and suggestions on how to continue your unit traditions in an untraditional way. Keep your eye out for more information.

Activity downloads

We made a selection of core programme resources for every section freely available for everyone for the first time ever in 2020, and will ensure that they will continue to be available while face-to-face guiding remains challenging for many units.  

Activities for wellbeing

We know that this is an incredibly unsettling time for everyone, especially young people, so we wanted to make wellbeing a key focus. So, we pulled out activities for all ages from our Think Resilient peer education resource, to help young people build the skills and resources they need to deal with life’s challenges. These are designed so that families can work through them together.

In 2021, we will continue to make these available for all young people to access while units are unable to meet face-to-face. Wellbeing and mental health will continue to be a big priority for us, and you will see that reflected in lots of different Adventures at home content.

Online events

In normal times, we have a few big events and festivals throughout the year that we know our community love to attend. We weren’t sure what to expect when we launched the Adventures at home festival in May, but we saw that there was a big appetite amongst members and parents to participate in online events and feel that sense of community.

In 2021, you can still access the content from the festival on our YouTube channel. We will continue to think about ways that we can bring our community together online – watch this space.

Where can I find everything? 

You can find all Adventures at home content on our website. We’ve organised all the games, activities and challenges by age range, so you can find everything that’s most relevant to your unit or children in one place. Remember to follow us on Facebook or Twitter to be notified whenever we release new exciting things!

Thank you for helping us to support girls and young women

Since Adventures at home launched on 25 March, we’ve had over 200,000 activity downloads from our website, and received lots of feedback on how useful they’ve been for everyone at home, particularly from parents:

“I would like to say thank you to everyone who has kept going during this time to provide such great activities for my daughter to do both on her own or with her unit.  She is very lucky to have an amazing group of leaders!”

“The online platform has been brilliant and we're so grateful for everyone's hard work. It was sometimes difficult to keep up with what was going on / activities to complete as we were trying to keep on track with weekly Brownies meetings as well, alongside school & general family life. But we are very grateful to everyone who has been involved and kept Girlguiding going - my daughter has really benefitted.”