Why did your organisation choose to be part of the cohort?

The cohort provided an exciting opportunity to work with specialists from Kids in Museums, Museum Tales and SEND in Museums, as well as increasing our networks within regional museums.  Museum Development Yorkshire created a supportive environment to openly and honestly explore the challenges and opportunities of engaging with families, especially within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a service with four sites, we selected Tolson Museum as our focus. Over 62% of our museum audience are ‘Child Pleasers’, yet from our audit we acknowledged there were multiple opportunities to better cater for families and improve visitor experience.

What was your organisation’s approach to family provision before the cohort?

The majority of our visitors are families from the local area and there is no doubt that Tolson, its collection and stories are loved by families. We have fantastic support for special events and craft activities.

However, several years of austerity cutbacks and Tolson’s uncertain future has meant a lack of investment in key offers – we ‘survive’ rather than ‘thrive’.

We provide limited family facilities, including highchairs, step stools and indoor places to eat picnics. The pandemic meant the removal of all potential touch points and most of the interactive elements were deemed too shabby to put back. The museum display information and interpretation is generally not aimed at children and young people. Our pre-visit information, marketing, engagement and feedback gathering were all limited. The front of house staff devised occasional family trails for special occasions and holidays, but these were not usually collections based. There was no permanent engaging offer in place.

We knew we needed to reinvigorate Tolson to meet the needs of our family audiences. However, we needed to do so within a small budget and use the available resources. This was a big challenge for us but a really necessary one.

What did you achieve as a result of the cohort?

We took a Roots and Branches approach in recognition of the opportunity the cohort provided and the needs of the service:

  • Staff Training: support for mandatory training for all staff on how to be family friendly.
  • Pre-Visit Information: A new Family web page is being developed, including a Visual Story, Family Map and My Visit Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) Planner Board.
  • Facilities: Highchairs, designated picnic area, bottle warmer, step stools, clearer signage, breastfeeding pillows and signed up to Breastfeeding Welcome scheme.
  • Mascot: New ‘friendly’ sheep mascots reflecting textile heritage of area.
  • Illustrated Family Map
  • Trails: Range of new test trails for children and families.
  • Explorer Packs: New packs to help families explore, including magnifying glass, colour paddles, torch, compass and lanyards.
  • SEND Backpacks: New enhanced Explorer Pack plus PECS Planning Board and sensory break toys.
  • Interactives: Refreshing, re-pitching and enhancing existing museum interactives, introducing new test activities and widening play styles.

In focus: Family Mascot

A key recommendation of our Mentor Audit was to develop a new Mascot that could be used to ‘badge’ our family friendly offer. Our existing Mascot, Ronnie the Raven, was a little sinister, rather dated and not at all friendly!

We worked with the wonderful illustrator Ruth Dyer to explore options and developed two new Mascots based on the textile heritage of the area. We looked at animals in our collection and used a heritage breed local to the area – a Woodland – and designed a Sheep with rainbow horns and her lamb with rainbow ears (which we use to denote under 5s resources).

The Mascots will be named by families this Summer.

The Mascots are used throughout the new family friendly offer, from website information to trails. The colour scheme used within the illustrations has been applied in the redesign and enhancement of our interactives.

Ruth has also illustrated our new Family Map for Tolson using Picture Exchange Communication System principles. We identified key items within the collection to be illustrated as well as key areas and facilities. We have developed a ‘My Visit to Tolson’ PECS planning board for SEND families.

Ruth has created a suite of illustrations in a variety of formats so we can use these in multiple ways going forward. We have learnt to use a free online graphic design programme (Canva) which has provided us with the autonomy and flexibility and cost effectiveness needed to respond to family feedback and develop new ideas.

We are in the process of providing similar family resources at our other sites.

Budget

The total cost of the project was £3,650, of which £1,800 of this was funded by the Museum Development Yorkshire Small Grants Fund.

After consultation on the brief with our illustrator, we set aside £900 for all illustration work – creating new mascots, a family friendly map and a suite of illustrations.

We invested in items to make the visit more amenable for families following advice from our mentor and SEND in Museums on support for SEND families.

We have devised low-cost interactive elements to test how well they engage children and families, these include a series of trails and activities and fun items to carry around the museum to look at collections in different ways. If the interactives prove very popular, we will look for funding to make them more robustly.

What was your organisation’s approach to families after the cohort?

The cohort has started us on a supported journey where, after years of austerity and the trauma of the pandemic, we feel positive developments are possible and improvements can be made in cost effective way.

We recognise that working with families is developmental, co-creation is key and feedback is to be encouraged. We actively identify opportunities to work and co-create with families and young people – such as Digital Takeover Day and the forthcoming Summer Blast for 13 years and up – and look at ways other events can feed into this offer.

Several interactive elements of the project are yet to be installed however we have started to test Explorer Packs and Test Trails with our visitors. We now host a Parent and Child Walk every Monday and have regular critics!

We look forward to working with SEND families and a local Special Education Needs School shortly to help us develop our SEND resources further.

Top tips

  • Use the Kids in Museums Manifesto as a framework to audit your provision, obtain multiple viewpoints and be honest – where are you now, where can you realistically be within your financial and time constraints? 
  • Talk to peers, visit other sites and gather good ideas.
  • Get everyone on board! 
  • Be cost effective – look at the long term and how for big ticket items you can use these again or in different ways.
  • With illustrations and design work, ask for the outputs in different formats so you can use these flexibly across your offer.
  • Have an inclusive approach – welcoming SEND families enhances the offer for everyone! 
  • Celebrate the opportunities – with a roots and branches approach the multitude of tasks can seem overwhelming but any enhancement to visitor experience is positive!

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