Written by Zara Mahmood Digital Assistant at LAH
LAH is always seeking out organisations that have a passion for change, a passion for making a difference, and for improving communities. We had a chance to be in contact with Alison Bowyer who is the Executive Director of the Kids in Museums to learn more about the amazing works that the organisation does.
How and why did your organisation start?
In March 2003, journalist Dea Birkett and her two year old son visited the Aztecs exhibition at the Royal Academy. When her young son shouted “Monster! Monster!” at a statue of Eagle Man, the family was thrown out.
Dea reported her family’s experience in her Guardian column. Hundreds of families wrote in to say they were fed up with feeling unwelcome in UK museums and galleries. The Kids in Museums campaign was launched and was led by Dea for 15 years until she stepped down and left the organisation in March 2018.
What does Kids in Museums do?
Kids in Museums is a charity dedicated to making museums open and welcoming to all children, young people and families. We support and champion family friendly organisations through wide-ranging initiatives, including the Family Friendly Museum Award and Takeover Day. We invite heritage organisations to sign up to our Manifesto, which sets out simple guidelines for making museums easy to reach for all ages. In addition we offer a range of training and consultancy for museum staff and there are over 100 free online resources on our website.
Why is the work that Kids in Museums do important?
The last set of DCMS Taking Part data before the pandemic showed that around 40% of 5-10 year olds and about 45% of 11-15 year olds had not visited a museum in the past 12 months. Access to museums before the pandemic was very unequal with families from non-White backgrounds, lower socio-economic groups and with disabilities being less likely to visit. COVID-19 has exacerbated many of these inequalities.
There are multiple factors that stop families, children and young people visiting museums. Rather than individual museums taking them on, Kids in Museums offers a national approach that focuses on sharing learning and best practice, cost effective solutions and approaches that are applicable to museums of all shapes and sizes. This is particularly important at the moment given the current pressures on staffing and budgets faced by museums.
Why do you think educating children in heritage and culture is important?
This question is incredibly difficult to answer succinctly as there are so many reasons. I think the one I would identify as most important to Kids in Museums is that data shows children who visit museums with their families are more likely to become remain lifelong visitors than those who just visit on school trips. That’s why Kids in Museums places so much emphasis on welcome and access for families.
If we improve access for all families, we are more likely to create new generations of museum visitors. This means they will benefit from the joy and knowledge museums have to offer as well as all of the benefits to wellbeing, education and civic participation that we know museum visitors experience.
How do you think the use of technology in this new digital age we live in will be helpful to your work?
Our work would not have survived COVID-19 without digital technology. During the pandemic we were able to share ‘museum at home’ activities with around 45,000 people, run a digital version of the Family Friendly Museum Award, deliver online training and mentoring for museum staff and Digital Takeover Days.
We have taken the learning from what we did during the pandemic and are continuing to run all our training online. This makes it more affordable, accessible and time efficient. We’ve also made changes to our website and started to offer more content for families.
On Digital Takeover Day, young people take over museum social media channels. This raises the profile of young people in heritage as our hashtag #TakeoverDay usually trends in the UK on Twitter. It also gives young people a sense that they are trusted by museums and makes them more likely to want to get involved with other museum activities.
What difference and impact have you made in communities and individuals?
We recently surveyed museums about the impact of our programmes. Overall we found that 83% of respondents felt our work is important and relevant to their programmes for families, children and young people.
Museums regularly use our Manifesto as a tool to support staff training and make changes to their family offer. 77% of respondents told us that their organisation met at least four of the six Manifesto points.
Takeover Day and Digital Takeover Day are important opportunities for museums to hear directly from young people. More than half of participants say they have made changes as a result of taking part. Around 80% of museums also say that Takeover Day and Digital Takeover Day make children and young people more likely to want to get involved with other museum activities.
What future projects are you working on?
We have just launched our Family Friendly Museum Award for 2022. Anyone can nominate their favourite museum on a short online form [https://kidsinmuseums.org.uk/what-we-do/family-friendly-museum-award/] until 6 June 2022.
Following consultation with families, children and young people we launched our updated Manifesto. There is more emphasis on access, play and activism in the new version. Organisations can sign up on our website [link https://kidsinmuseums.org.uk/what-we-do/manifesto/]
Digital Takeover Day and Takeover Day this year are themed around wellbeing. We felt this was important to support children and young people as they continue to recover from the pandemic. There is more information about getting involved on our website [link https://kidsinmuseums.org.uk/what-we-do/takeover-day/].
What do you hope to see for the future of your organisation?
There is still a lot of work to do to ensure all families, children and young people have equal access to museums. As long as this is the case, we will continue to deliver our core programmes. However, we also want to do more focused training and mentoring to address inequalities of access, more to involve young people in museums as decision makers and more to support museums to work alongside children and young people to tackle the climate and ecological emergency.
How can people interested in your work contact you?
The best way to stay in touch with Kids in Museums is to sign up to our newsletter.
You can follow us on Twitter Facebook and Instagram Or if you can contact us by email.
