Family Friendly Museum Award From Home
Read about our special one-off award, celebrating how museums and heritage sites have supported families through lockdown.
Pupils on Takeover Day at Lauderdale House © Jayne Lloyd / Kids in Museums In Spring 2020, we invited families and museums to share what they think is the best virtual activity created by a museum, gallery, historic house or heritage site.
It could be a live broadcast, craft activity, quiz, social media challenge, game or something else!
Over the summer, families tested out the activities and their feedback, along with an expert panel, decided the winners.
The winners of the Family Friendly Museum Award From Home were announced on 19 October 2020 in a virtual awards ceremony hosted by TV’s Philip Mould and Professor Kate Williams. Congratulations to all our winning museums!
We hope that the Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum Award will be back in its normal form in 2021.
How do we nominate our museum for the award?
We are looking for museums, galleries, historic houses and heritage sites that have stayed in touch with their family audiences during lockdown and engaged new families with imaginative and accessible digital content.
We are not looking for projects with huge budgets or flashy websites, we are looking for digital activities that have responded to what families need as they have spent a prolonged period at home.
If you are a museum, please take a look at our award guidance for full eligibility criteria before you apply.
To make your application, fill in the form at the bottom of this page. We appreciate this is a challenging time for museums and their staff. Entering the award is free and completing the application form should take no longer than 15 minutes.
We have a range of nomination materials to help you promote nominations from your family audience, including a social media graphic and template website story.
Nominations for the Family Friendly Museum Award From Home closed at 5pm on 30 June 2020. Take a look at the museums shortlisted for the award.
What are the award categories?
There are five categories of the Family Friendly Museum Award From Home:
- Best film
- Best social media activity
- Best website activity
- Best international digital activity
- The Going the Extra Mile Award.
In recognition of the worldwide reach of digital activities, we have an international category for our awards for the first time.
How is my application judged?
There will be no overall award winner in 2020. Instead each category will have a winner and highly commended award.
Our expert panel of museum professionals and young people will whittle our nominations down to a shortlist.
We will recruit family judges to review the entries in each category during August 2020. Their feedback will be combined with input from our expert panel to decide the winning and highly commended organisation in each category.
Key dates
Nominations for the Family Friendly Museum Award From Home open on Tuesday 19 May 2020 and close at 5pm on Tuesday 30 June 2020.
Our expert panel will meet in mid-July with the shortlist announced w/c 20 July 2020. Family judges will review the shortlisted activities in August.
The winners and highly commended activities will be announced at an awards ceremony in October.
Find out more
If you have questions about the award, contact us on: [email protected]
The Family Friendly Museum Award From Home is made possible by Arts Council England.
