Kids in Museums – building a positive future for youngsters

How has becoming an NPO started to benefit Kids in Museums in 2018?

At the same time as receiving NPO funding, Kids in Museums has also received a Resilient Heritage grant from HLF. The HLF grant is enabling us to build our organisational capacity in areas such as fundraising and impact measurement and become more resilient. This means that as we become an NPO we will have firm foundations in place to make the most of long-term support from ACE. ACE investment will allow us to develop key projects such as the Manifesto and Takeover Day, so more museums can get involved, as well as provide more trusted advice and support to the sector through online resources, a brand-new website and a new training and consultancy offer.

How will being an NPO affect Kids in Museums and what plans can we expect to see? 

It’s going to be fantastic for Kids in Museums to be part of a wider network of Sector Support Organisations (SSO) for the museum sector. Along with our soon-to-be SSO colleagues, we’re already thinking about how we can work together to provide comprehensive support for all aspects of museums work. Within this network, it’s important that Kids in Museums continues to ensure the voices of children, families and young people are heard in museums. We’ll be doing more work on youth panels, consulting widely as we develop our Manifesto and looking at how we involve young people in our own organisation as volunteers and trustees.

What is Kids in Museums hoping to achieve through the online surveys and when is the deadline for answers?

We’ve been doing a couple of different surveys over the past few weeks. As part of our HLF project, Caroline Marcus Associates are working with us to redesign our training and consultancy offer. The first is the Kids in Museums Training Survey, which is open for a few more days. We’re also keen to hear views about Takeover Day, particularly from museums who would like to take part, but don’t feel able to. We want to improve the resources and support we offer around Takeover Day and are seeking views about how we can do this. The Takeover Day survey is open until 20 February – click here if your museum is in Wales and here if your museum is in England.

How is Kids in Museums continuing to improve Takeover Day and what does it offer the sector?

Takeover Day is a powerful way to get children and young people actively involved in museums and change their views of what museums are about. There are many benefits to Takeover Day for children and young people, but at a time when workforce diversity is such a hot topic, we think that it can play a role in broadening the range of young people who consider museum careers, showing them the wide range that’s on offer. Takeover Day also has an impact on museums changing how they think about their work with children and young people. As a result, we want to improve Takeover Day and make it flexible so that as many museums as possible can take part. We really want to hear a wide range of views on what would help more museums to get involved.

How was Takeover Day 2017 received and how many children took part?

In 2017 almost 200 museum and galleries were taken over by nearly 5,000 children and young people in England and Wales. This shows how the project has grown since the first Takeover Days in England and Wales with the number of participating museums having more than doubled. This year we’ve seen some interesting trends. In Wales we saw a growth in the number of museums working with groups of teenagers, showing how Takeover Day can help to engage this group and perhaps encourage them to become independent museums visitors. In England over 80% of the schools that museums worked with were local state schools, enabling them to strengthen their links in the local community. We’re also pleased that around one third of this year’s participating venues were new to the project.

To apply for a Heritage Lottery Fund Resilient Heritage Grant click here.