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Description: Abstract Background and rationale: No effective pharmacological treatments for Covid-19 have currently been found. This situation is renewing interest in non-pharmacological measures meant to slow the spread of respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2. Although children appear to remain relatively protected from complications of Covid-19 this might not be the case with the next pandemic pathogen and residential staff looking after children in care are at risk of contracting the disease when at work. Even if they are spared from the direct effects of the virus children in care may still suffer from not being able to physically meet with their parents or from being isolated from their peers. Objective: To investigate, summarize and categorize non-pharmacological measures taken in children’s homes affected by respiratory outbreaks reported in the scientific literature. Study design Cross-sectional secondary analysis of published scientific literature identified in a recently published rapid scoping review Methods: All 37 studies included in a recent scoping review of the literature on respiratory outbreaks in children’s homes were read in full and non-pharmacological measures manually sought from the study reports and summarized in a premade data collection form along with supporting quote(s) or excerpts. Data was then categorized under 10 categories: social distancing, hygiene, institutional rules, children/residents, families of residents, organizational, management of residents with respiratory disease (real or suspected), educational, mixed-interventions or other. Results: The 37 included articles reported data on respiratory outbreaks which occurred between 1957 and 2011. 13 articles did not report data on non-pharmacological measures taken and data was not extracted from 5 articles deemed out of scope; a final sample of 18 articles provided data for analysis. 83 non-pharmacological measures were reported in these 18 articles. Articles reported anywhere from 1 to 23 unique non-pharmacological measures. Overall, a total of 51 unique non-pharmacological measures were identified. Discussion: A range of non-pharmacological measures taken by residential staff appear to remain unreported in the literature. No measures specifically designed to support residents’ families or meant to improve residents’ school outcomes during outbreaks were found in included articles. Articles typically reported few non-pharmacological measures taken which makes it difficult to assess if other measures were or were not taken and if they could have impacted study outcomes. When non-pharmacological measures were reported few details were provided for stakeholders. The development and use of a reporting guideline meant for outbreak investigations in residential institutions may help clarify which key non-pharmacological measures to describe in reports and use of the TIDieR intervention reporting checklist may help make non-pharmacological measures more reproducible and implementable by residential staff. Funding: No funding was received for this work. Registration: See https://osf.io/fkctw/ (see previous versions) Data and materials: See https://osf.io/q94n3/ and https://osf.io/nt9dx/; all other data is otherwise included within the manuscript. Keywords: Residential care, cross-sectional analysis, respiratory outbreaks, children’s home, non-pharmacological measures, children