3 Family Friendly courses delivered Online

Creating family friendly exhibitions Please Note: this is a recording of a session which took place 3 July 2024. The purchase includes access to the recording until February 2025 to view as many times as you like, as well as resources used during the training.   Do you want to create a family friendly exhibition in your museum, but aren’t sure where to start?   About this training   During this session, we will be exploring the process of developing and delivering a family exhibition with practical tips and ideas.   This training webinar will be led by Sarah Shaw, former National Family Interpretation Manager for English Heritage. Her work included collaboratively designing family friendly experiences with families at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Birdoswald Roman Fort, which won the Best Family Day Out UK Heritage Award in 2020. She was also the project manager for the Marvellous and Mischievous: Literature’s Young Rebels exhibition at York Art Gallery in 2023.   The session will help delegates to:   discuss how to plan for families in exhibitions find out how to use learning and play styles for interpretation and resources learn top tips for developing family friendly exhibitions think about how you consult with families to develop your provision hear ideas for wider improvements to your family visitor experience.   Take a look at the full schedule.     Who should attend? This training is aimed at staff who work in museums, art galleries and heritage sites who are interested in developing successful family friendly exhibitions.

Creating Family Friendly Museums – Afternoon Cuppa Session  Tuesday 25 March 2025, 2-3.30pm  Join us for an informal virtual briefing and discussion session, featuring exciting updates from Kids in Museums. We will be sharing information about the updated Kids in Museums Manifesto and the Family Friendly Museum Award 2025.   The Kids in Museums Manifesto is a set of simple guidelines for museums, heritage sites and cultural organisations, which we update every two years. Between October and December 2024, we consulted hundreds of children, young people and families about what makes a heritage site a great place to visit. In this session, we will reveal the new version of the Manifesto, along with low and no cost changes you could make to enhance your museum’s family provision.   You will also hear more about the Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum Award, which recognises the venues that are most welcoming, fun, and accessible for families.   In this session, you will:  find out about the updated version of the Kids in Museums Manifesto gain an insight into what children, young people and families think about museums, heritage sites and cultural organisations hear a range of practical ideas to inspire your family friendly provision gain inspiration from a case study from the winner of the Best Small Museum at the Family Friendly Museum Award 2024 – National Civil War Centre, Newark. They will talk about their work with families and how their success in the 2024 Family Friendly Museum Award has impacted the museum. informally share more about your current family offer and how you can put ideas from the session into practice. Please bring your own cuppa and snacks!  Take a look at the full schedule. This event will be delivered virtually over one and a half hours.  

Since the end of the pandemic, children, young people and families have faced a barrage of challenges to their standard of living, wellbeing, family life and place within society. Our conference will focus on how museums can become welcoming and accessible spaces that enable all children, young people and families to socialise, relax, play, work and learn. Family Against the background of a slow post-Covid recovery and ingrained inequalities of access amongst museum audiences, we will share examples of museum programmes that have successfully welcomed children, young people and families who have historically been excluded. Often these new audiences have found a sense of safety and belonging in their local museums and become less isolated. Society In an increasingly polarised world where online disinformation proliferates, museums have a vital role in enabling people to build empathy and explore social justice issues. Work in this space helps museums remain relevant to younger audiences and helps them feel more optimistic about the future. Careers As the number of museum traineeships and apprenticeships are shrinking, so are the routes into a career in heritage. We’ll explore programmes that are opening up the museum workforce and enabling a wider group of young people to find meaningful work and build skills and confidence for future employment. Conference Format The conference programme has three strands: Case study presentations Interactive workshops A selection of activities, panel discussions and workshops programmed by the Kids in Museums Youth Panel. These sessions will be bookended by expert keynote speakers and the launch of the new Kids in Museums Manifesto. Explore the programme and schedule Bursaries We want the conference as accessible as possible. We have free tickets available for under 25s and others who are unable to afford to buy a ticket. To apply for a bursary, please complete the short form on this page. The deadline for applications for bursaries is 21 January 2025.