My unit has been adapting Guide badges for a little while. Originally, these adaptations were to enable some of our girls with special educational needs (SEN) to be able to access the material without changing the badge too much. Often, it’s just a case of rewording or adding context. The first one I changed up was the Media Critic badge.
The original badge had a lot of concepts that weren’t defined which meant the child who wanted to do it found it hard to start. So my alterations involved explaining and giving contexts to the ideas mentioned and giving examples as often that helps. Our other leader Nicky and I then started changing up a few badges for this purpose. It’s relatively easy and means girls who struggle can achieve badges that they struggled to access before. My background is working with SEN children so I often help out on that front with alterations to badges and unit meetings to make it easier for the SEN girls to join in and enjoy guiding.
While units are closed, Nicky and I knew we wanted to have badges and challenges available for the girls. In particular, we had two who went into early self-isolation and I was keen on making sure they still had things to do. So, I adapted two Pawprint challenge badges* to be completely isolation-friendly.
I did this in three ways:
- Remove any activities that involve outside events or gatherings or adapt those into activities they can do;
- Add links to tutorials and videos so they can use those and work through it on their own rather than having to distract their parent or guardian who may be working indoors;
- Made it easy to read with decent sized writing and a dyslexia-friendly font. We use Comic Sans and size 14.
Mainly, I’d say it’s about being flexible and taking away the pressure for the girls while also giving them something fun to do that you know they’ll enjoy. In that sense, it’s about knowing your unit and what they enjoy doing. There’s no point in adapting a badge you know your girls don’t want!
Finally, I’d say to remember that they have school work too so try not to get disappointed if you send out your badge alterations and they don’t do them for a little bit. They are as busy and stressed out as we are!
If you have any questions about doing this or just want some ideas please feel free to message me at @csg2nd on Twitter.