For the past two years I have had the great privilege to manage the workshop programme for Kids in Museums, sourcing venues who will host us, researching and inviting speakers and developing new themes for the workshops. I ran my last one last week at the Science Museum on Welcoming Families with Autism in museums and galleries. Kids in Museums is now reviewing the workshop programme. Back when the workshops started in 2010 they were the only ones of their kind in the museum sector, and it is testament to their success that many other organisations now run workshops on how to work with families, Early Years audiences and young people.
The highlights of my stint have been the personal stories of what a difference access to the arts and culture have made to people. There was Gloria at the London Transport Museum who had first arrived as a young volunteer and had gone on to be a consultant to other museums about how to welcome young people into culture. There was Sally who had not done well at school but with the help of Arts Award had managed to get into university and was also running the Arts Award Youth Network. Most recently there was Jack, a young man on the autistic spectrum, who spoke with pride about his volunteering at Dorchester Museum to help local youth clubs rediscover their history.
The best bits were always hearing from actual children, young people and parents about what museums can do to be more accessible, more welcoming and more inclusive. The young tour guides at the Wallace Museum were articulate, professional and funny. Kids in Museums has a dedicated group of families that go undercover to judge the shortlisted entrants to the Family Friendly Museum Award and it was great to hear directly from them at the workshops. Vyki Sparkes, who also blogs at Museum Mum, was one of those who came to a couple of our workshops, bringing her youngest along with her at one point. Another parent museum blogger who likes to remain anonymous, Tincture of Museum, spoke very passionately at the recent Welcoming families with autism workshop about the small things that museums can do to help families affected by ASD, like pointing out when a lift might be using time travel sound effects.
It was always refreshing to introduce some culture into the day, as well, to remind us all why we do the jobs we do. Aisling Fahey, the Young Poet Laureate for London for 2014-15, performed some of her poetry for us at the Learning together workshop at the Barbican, and a Barbican Young Poet named Amina Jama did the same at our Youth Panel workshop at White Cube. Martin Daws, the Young People’s Laureate for Wales got us all involved in performance at our Teen Workshop at Cardiff Story. Miaomiao Yu of Bach to Baby played (Mozart) for us in the Foundling Museum, a very moving experience.
We heard plenty of research, too, with presentations by Abigail Hackett of Sheffield University about her doctoral research into how toddlers experience museums on repeated visits, from Caspar Addyman of Birkbeck’s Baby Laughter project and from Eirwen Hopkins and Iona Towler-Evans of the Choice Project at Swansea University that used the commission model to engage young people at risk of being NEET (not in education, employment or training) with their local heritage.
The last, and most important thing to say about the workshops, was what an amazing team of people worked on them. Catherine Townsend and Mikaela Webb both did amazing jobs of liaising with venues and caterers, and pushing the marketing out to new channels. The volunteers who support the workshops, like Jane Allnut, Tempe Nell, Rachel Job, Jack Shoulder, and many, many more all do a fabulous job and go the extra mile to make sure that the days always run smoothly. My heartfelt thanks goes out to them for making my job pretty easy.
kim biddulph 