Mind Matters – COVID-19: Training Room Health & Safety

In light of the current circumstances with the COVID-19 Coronavirus, we’re reaching out to share how we are going to manage our training in the near future. Please rest assured that we are monitoring the situation closely and will provide further updates as necessary. If you have any questions, please contact us and we’ll be happy to assist you.

At this time we have ceased face-to-face training course deliveries as instructed by the authorities. In the coming months we hope that face-to-face deliveries will resume and in most areas, the risks are low, and can be further minimised with the precautions shared below. This will allow us to reach as many people as possible with life-saving and essential skills during a time when many of us may experience challenges to our mental health and wellbeing.

Steps to make our training course safer

Just as personal safety is a key element of Mind Matters training courses from a mental health perspective, physical safety around COVID-19 is essential. Here are several steps we will follow to make our training rooms safer. We would like to acknowledge the generous input of LivingWorks Education, Canada in helping us to formulate this list to keep us all safer from COVID-19:

1. All delegates are reminded about hand washing thoroughly and regularly, sneezing or coughing into their elbow rather than their hand.
2. Our electronic devices will be disinfected throughout the day—for example, the slide clicker  used to advance your slides.
3. We will be asking any delegates not to attend if they are feeling ill. For our open courses, delegates will be offered the opportunity to move their place to future dates at no financial penalty. All future dates can be found here https://www.mindmatterstraining.co.uk/training-calendar/
4. Where possible we will use a larger training room to aid social distancing, and you may also be asked to sit at opposite corners of a table when doing group work.
5. Where buffet lunches are provided, we will be asking the provider to offer serving utensils to avoid unnecessary cross contamination.
6. Rather than using a shared sign-in sheet/register, the trainer will confirm everyone’s attendance by taking names to avoid sharing pens and paper.
7. Manuals and workbooks will be handed out (as we already do) rather than laying them in a pile (so that fewer people touch them).
8. Name badges will be pre-written to avoid sharing marker pens.
9. For sections where participants are encouraged to write information down (e.g. on a flipchart or whiteboard), we will ask your group to designate a single scribe (so only one person uses the marker) or we will have you say answers out loud so that we can write them down.
10. We will have PPE available for both the training instructor and delegates for all days of training: face masks, rubber gloves, and hand sanitiser.

It’s essential to keep our training courses a safe environment for all people in the room and we are grateful for your co-operation during these challenging times. Fortunately, our trainers are some of the most determined and resourceful individuals out there! We’ll be watching the situation closely and will provide you with further updates going forward.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions or any recommendations of your own for minimising COVID-19 risk in the training room. If you would like to access a copy of our Covid-19 Risk Assessment please email [email protected]

In the meantime we wish everyone good health and mental wellbeing during these challenging times.

Jane McNeice, Founding Director & Principal Trainer, Mind Matters