These guidelines aim to inform the decision-making process regarding school reopening, support national preparations and guide the implementation process, as part of overall public health and education planning processes. It is designed to be a flexible tool that can be adapted to each context and updated as the situation changes. The guidelines outline six key priorities to assess the readiness of those schools and inform planning.

n many countries, efforts to contain COVID-19 have resulted in an economic recession, pushing millions out of their jobs, and creating previously unprecedented unemployment in many countries worldwide. In addition to the millions of people infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), hundreds of thousands have died—and will die—from COVID-19.

This Field Manual was developed by GOAL for GOAL community mobilizers implementing the Community-Led Action (CLA) approach to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in their communities. GOAL is an international humanitarian and development agency, committed to working with communities to achieve sustainable and innovative early response in crises, and lasting solutions to poverty and vulnerability.It can also be used by other organisations who wish to implement the CLA approach as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

This Field Manual was developed by GOAL for GOAL community mobilizers implementing the Community-Led Action (CLA) approach to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in their communities. GOAL is an international humanitarian and development agency, committed to working with communities to achieve sustainable and innovative early response in crises, and lasting solutions to poverty and vulnerability.It can also be used by other organisations who wish to implement the CLA approach as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

There is wide agreement that community engagement (CE) is important to strengthen collaborative partnerships and ethical practice across many research types and settings, often including interaction with ‘representatives’ of communities. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging health systems across the world. Rapidly increasing demand for care of people with COVID-19 is compounded by fear, misinformation and limitations on the movement of people and supplies that disrupt the delivery of frontline health care for all people. When health systems are overwhelmed and people fail to access needed services, both direct mortality and indirect mortality from preventable and treatable conditions increase (1-3). Decision-makers will need to make difficult choices to ensure that COVID-19 and other urgent, ongoing public health problems are addressed while minimizing risks to health workers and communities.

While communication efforts are important, policymakers, funders, and programmers have the responsibility to not just ask people in communities to practice physical distancing, but to invest and innovate in redesigning social contexts and service delivery to make it feasible for everyone to practice physical distancing.

This brief offers examples which demonstrate the emerging need for expertise in designing government services for chronic scarcity as society adapts to a new way of life in light of COVID-19.

DisasterReady.org [www.disasterready.org], a signature program of the Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation, is an open online learning community built to empower humanitarians working in relief and development.

This guidance note provides clear recommendations to national societies on how volunteers can carry out face-to-face social mobilization safely, how to advocate for continued access to communities with governments in the face of movement restrictions and options for remote risk communication and community engagement (RCCE), when face to face access is no longer an option.