Last year, we held a Kids in Museums training day at Manchester Museum exploring what museums can do to support the wellbeing of children and families in their local community.

To mark Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2020, we wanted to share the experiences and advice of two organisations discussed on this training day: Manchester Museum and The Whitworth.

These University of Manchester museums have pioneering and long-established wellbeing programmes. This work contributes to health initiatives funded by the devolved health and social care budget in Greater Manchester.

Here they describe their programmes and share tops tips for promoting wellbeing in children and families at your venue.

Case study 1: Muso Baby Social Prescribing Pilot at Manchester Museum

Why did your organisation choose to do this work?

The pilot is part of Manchester Museum’s hello future redevelopment and aims to develop a series of social prescribing programmes with health partners. We hope the Muso Baby project will embed support for parental health and wellbeing as part of the new family programme when the galleries reopen in 2022.

What does the pilot consist of?

Muso Baby is delivered through five friendly, interactive music and sensory play sessions. They are attended by mothers experiencing or at risk of anxiety or post-natal depression and their babies.

The sessions take place in the museum’s under 5s gallery, Nature Discovery, and are led by a music therapist and museum staff. They aim to encourage an emotional connection between parent and child, as well as offering parents the chance to develop supportive peer relationships in a safe space.

To build familiarity and confidence, sessions follow a similar structure each week and content is themed around the collections, seasons and weather. Sessions include welcome and goodbye songs, well-known rhymes and action songs, free time to explore sensory resources and musical instruments with their babies, and time to socialise and speak informally about challenges.

How are participants recruited?

To recruit mothers, the museum sent digital flyers and hand-delivered leaflets to local children’s centres and GP practices. The sessions are also promoted through partner health professional networks across Greater Manchester, including the NHS Trust-based specialist perinatal teams and the IHV perinatal and maternal health champions team who meet regularly at the museum.

What costs are involved?

The costs for the pilot are covered by the museum’s budget. The main cost is the music therapist’s fee for each session. The long-term aim for the work is to seek funding from health partners.
If you’re looking to work with a music therapist, you can find more information on the British Association of Music Therapists (BAMT) website.

How is the programme evaluated?

The sessions are evaluated through conversations with the mothers and their responses to the UCL museum wellbeing measures toolkit (the short six-item version), measuring changes in wellbeing from the first and last sessions.

Did the work achieve what you set out to do?

So far, the museum has delivered 16 sessions for three cohorts of mums and babies, reaching 11 mums and 12 babies between April and November 2019. A further 25 sessions for five cohorts of mums and babies is planned for 2020 (however this may change due to the impact of Covid-19).

Thanks to the safe and consistent environment created in the museum, families relaxed and engaged in the activities. By the end of the sessions, the project team noticed the difficult presentations observed in the mothers during the first sessions had reduced. These had included ruminative and repetitive thoughts, anxious language and difficulty maintaining eye contact with their child. The evaluation also found that the mothers were singing to their babies more at home. These are changes which could potentially lead to more positive attachment behaviours.

Feedback from project staff and participants

Music therapist Rachel Swanick noted:

“Holding the therapy sessions amongst the exhibits in the museum adds another dimension to the capacity to reflect upon our wellbeing journeys. The objects in the space can be used as memory tools, to be projected upon in our inner thoughts or even to provide a narrative to ourselves – or in the case of Muso Baby, a way for parents to engage with their children”

Elaine Bates, Early Years Co-ordinator at Manchester Museum, observed:

“Muso Baby builds on our experience of delivering parent and baby programmes. For a long time, there was an ambition to do some more targeted work with mums experiencing post-natal depression. Having the opportunity to work alongside a qualified music therapist like Rachel has given us the opportunity and confidence to raise the profile of museums and galleries as spaces to deliver this kind of work as an alternative to clinical settings.”

A participant’s perspective:

One mum of twins was struggling with anxiety and depression and confided that she had felt unsupported at other baby groups she’d attended. Muso Baby felt ‘different’ and she was really grateful for what the museum was doing.

What have been the main challenges with this work?

The recruitment of mothers to the sessions has been a challenge, as building relationships with key referral partners has taken longer than planned. However, as work progresses, relationships have developed with health workers and other professionals who support families with young children. As a result, the museum is getting more direct referrals.

Case study 2: Family volunteering at The Whitworth

Why did your organisation choose to do this work?

One of the biggest barriers to volunteering is having a family to look after. The Whitworth wanted to create the opportunity for family members to volunteer as a group so they can enjoy more quality time and achieve something together. The gallery didn’t know a lot about family volunteering, so Volunteer Manager Fiona Cariss spoke with the National Trust about their work before undertaking a pilot.

What did the pilot family consist of?

In Easter 2018, the gallery undertook a pilot with some of their existing volunteers volunteering alongside their families. The first volunteers were 8-year-old twins with their grandma. Staff observed the children started off being really shy, but throughout the week gained confidence. They started engaging the younger children in play activities, making obstacle courses for them and generally making all the other children feel welcome.

What happened after the pilot?

Following the pilot’s success, opportunities to volunteer as a family during the summer Playtime programme were advertised externally through the Culture Kids Manchester Facebook page. The response was very good and many of the first family volunteers were mothers with their babies, most of whom had not attended sessions previously.

How is the programme evaluated?

The programme is part of the NCVO national research into family volunteering. The Research is carried out in partnership with University of Birmingham and the University of Salford.

What costs are involved?

The costs are covered by the gallery’s budget. The main costs are for travel (up to £7 a week), volunteer uniforms for the children, snacks and drinks. Small gifts from the Whitworth shop for the children are also bought as a thank you after the school holidays.

Our aim is to get the programme sponsored or funded so that the Whitworth can expand the volunteering into a more regular programme, with training and learning opportunities for all the families involved.

Did the work achieve what you set out to do?

The Whitworth now has 20 active family volunteers and has engaged over 35 since spring 2018. The programme has grown and attracted a range of families with both younger and older children. Many families continue volunteering weekly in the early years workshops. They range from a single mother with her toddler, siblings who are 14 and 24 years old, and a mother and her two children of 4 and 6 years old. Even the babies wear yellow volunteer t-shirts, which has been very popular with all visitors.

Feedback from a family volunteer

“The fact that you opened up the volunteering opportunities to include those of us with babies and children was great, and I can honestly say it was the best thing Olive and I did over the summer. Not just because the baby sensory area was a lovely place to spend time, but also because getting out and about and chatting to other parents has been so good for my mental wellbeing! Being on maternity leave can often feel quite isolating with only a tiny person to chat to, especially when so many activities stop over the summer. I genuinely looked forward to each volunteering shift, and knowing how welcoming and supportive everyone at The Whitworth was, it never felt difficult being there with a little baby!”

What have been the main challenges with this work?

Most families are recruited through word of mouth or from visitors seeing the family volunteers in action and enquiring about it themselves. The gallery also advertises opportunities through Facebook, Instagram and the Whitworth’s website.

Since 2018, the volunteers have become more diverse and are more reflective of the local community. However, the gallery would like to encourage more LBGTQ+ plus families to apply through building upon the Whitworth’s relationship with The Proud Trust.

The Whitworth is also developing more targeted recruitment with key local partners from local primary schools and children’s centres. All volunteers so far have been female with their children or siblings and therefore another aim is to recruit male family members.

Top tips for undertaking wellbeing work with children and families

1. Undertake research into the health needs of children and families in your area

You can do this through finding the Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) in your area. Here’s an example from Southwark. This can help you to identify key groups you could work with, such as SEND families, young carers, under 5s, mothers and babies, children in care, families living in high areas of deprivation and children who have gone through adverse childhood experiences.

Alternatively, you could decide to focus on promoting general wellbeing for all family visitors by using frameworks like the Five Ways to Wellbeing.

2. Work in partnership

Elaine Bates, Early Years Co-ordinator at Manchester Museum, says: “Develop relationships with health professionals, both practitioners like local health visitors and more strategic groups, to encourage and support the use of museum spaces for therapeutic activities. We have been hosting team meetings in the gallery for the Greater Manchester health visitor champions group (perinatal mental health). This has included time for me to speak to them about museum initiatives, sit in on sessions pertinent to my role and for them to have short visits to museum spaces.”

3. Start with a small pilot and evaluate work

As these case studies show, starting small and evaluating your pilot can help you to think about whether you can upscale and sustain your work. For example, Fiona Cariss, Volunteer Manager at the Whitworth, says: “The process of engaging Family Volunteers in an art gallery has been a very similar process to engaging our other volunteers. Although we have realised it can take up a lot more time, in terms of being flexible, wanting to make sure the whole family feel welcomed and communicating that amongst the staff of the gallery.”

For more information on evaluating wellbeing, you may wish to explore module four of this free online course from the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance.

Further reading

Early years

Museum of London’s Early Years toolkit: Early years and wellbeing case studies

Children and young people

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