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Training and Consultancy

We provide a range of training events and consultancy for the museum sector in the UK and internationally, including bespoke Family Friendly Museum Audits.

Browse our bookable webinars and training events in the calendar below, or for support tailored for your organisation, read more about our bespoke training and Family Friendly Museum Audits.

Training

We offer webinars and training events on a variety of themes to support your work with children, young people and families. Our training events expand on different aspects of the Kids in Museums Manifesto, covering everything from accessibility to co-creation.

They bring together leading experts in their field and a range of different organisations, exploring the successes and challenges of their work. You will have the opportunity to share issues and best practice, and explore the next steps for implementing ideas. In 2022, 88% of participants rated our training as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’, with 78% saying they would share learnings with colleagues.

Training events are open to museum staff of all levels in the UK and internationally. They are delivered in English, or sometimes English and Welsh for Wales only training events. We can support a range of accessibility requests, such as provision of audio description or closed captioning and providing presentations in advance.

Webinars will be available to purchase as recordings for up to three months after the live event.

Please check back to see when further training events are added. Make sure you are signed up to our Training Mailing List for the latest updates.

Checkout issues? Book here.

We also hold regular training events with Museum Development organisations across the UK. Please check your local Museum Development website in the first instance. We will list upcoming opportunities below where possible.

Bespoke training for your museum

Kids in Museums can offer training tailored to the needs of the staff and volunteers in your museum. Sessions can be delivered virtually or in person. Our four standard bespoke training courses are listed below – click on the title for full details.

Please note Kids in Museums is not VAT registered so prices quoted are the full cost and no VAT will be incurred.

  • Front of house training: Creating family friendly interactions

    Kids in Museums can offer training tailored to the needs of the front facing staff and volunteers in your museum to help them create family friendly interactions. Sessions can be delivered virtually or in person.

    “This training session was fantastic. The facilitators were very knowledgeable and used real life experience to back up the theory. The session was carefully planned and bespoke elements added to make it very relevant to our site and our staff. All of the participants were engaged and came away buzzing with ideas and enthusiasm for improving our family offer.”
    Maya Harrison, Principal Keeper at Temple Newsam

    During the training, delegates will:

    • learn why family visitors are an important part of your visitor profile
    • gain an understanding of the key concerns families have about visiting museums
    • come up with solutions to resolve common scenarios together
    • explore playful ways to interact with families that are relevant to your site.

    This training course is delivered in partnership with Sarah Shaw, former National Family Interpretation Manager for English Heritage.

    There are two delivery options, all of which can accommodate a group of up to 25 attendees:

  • Front of house training: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) families

    We offer training tailored to the needs of the front facing staff and volunteers in your museum to help them interact with SEND families. This session can be delivered virtually only.

    “Sam Bowen was so engaging and knowledgeable. She gave great examples from lived experience and practical suggestions.”
    Training attendee, April 2023

    A 2019 study from Ecclesiastical surveyed SEND families who had visited museums, castles and heritage sites and found that 42% of parents with special needs children reported that staff or visitors were unfriendly or made them feel uncomfortable.

    This session will ensure that your museum avoids becoming part of this statistic, offering ideas for fun and accessible interactions with SEND families.

    During the training, delegates will:

    • learn why SEND family visitors are an important part of your visitor profile
    • understand the barriers SEND families face when visiting museums
    • come up with ways to tackle common scenarios together
    • explore playful ways to interact with SEND families that are relevant to your site.

    This training course is delivered in partnership with Sam Bowen, SEND in Museums Consultant.

    This session can only be delivered virtually as a one half-day virtual session (two and a half hours with a short break) and can accommodate a group of up to 25 attendees: £800.

    View a full sample schedule.

  • Working meaningfully with young people

    This training is aimed at staff who work in museums, art galleries and heritage sites who are interested in developing or improving their provision with young people.

    “Thank you so much for coming down and delivering the training, the whole team really enjoyed it, and it gave us a good understanding of working with young people, and a lot of ideas that we are hoping to try out!”
    Sarah Stewart, Assistant Museum Manager at the Queen Street Mill Textile Museum

    The session will help delegates to:

    • understand the importance of this work
    • think about how to develop or improve short, medium and longer-term engagement with young people
    • gain inspiration from case studies to take your own work forward
    • gain an insight into how young people experience these programmes.

    There are three delivery options, all of which can accommodate a group of up to 25 attendees:

    • Option 1 – One half day virtual session (two and a half hours with a short break): £500.
      Option 2 – One half day face to face session (two and a half hours with a short break): Cost available on request.
      View a full sample schedule.
    • Option 3 – One long half day face to face session (three hours and fifteen minutes with a short break). Cost available on request.
      View a full sample schedule.
  • Creating family friendly resources

    Do you want to explore ways to improve your self-guided resources for families at your museum or heritage site?

    “I have gained new ideas, tips and a lot of information on the learning styles of children and how you can achieve these within your own setting.”
    Training attendee, October 2021

    During the training, delegates will:

    • gain an understanding of play and learning styles to help you create resources to suit a wider range of children and young people
    • find out how to adapt your resources to children of different age groups
    • develop your resources for families to enjoy together as a group
    • gain inspiration from a range of examples to take your own work forward.

    This training course is delivered in partnership with Sarah Shaw, former National Family Interpretation Manager for English Heritage. Her work included designing family friendly experiences at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Birdoswald Roman Fort, which won the Best Family Day Out UK Heritage Award in 2020.

    There are two delivery options, both of which can accommodate a group of up to 25 attendees:

    • Option 1 – One half-day virtual session (two and a half hours with a short break): £550.
      Option 2 – One half-day face to face session (two and a half hours with a short break): Cost available on request.

    View a full sample schedule.

We are also able to offer training on welcoming autistic families, engaging families with under 5s in museums, marketing to families, creating museum youth panels or family focus groups, loose parts play or playful prompts, creating sensory backpacks for families with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), meaningful consultation with children and families, encouraging intergenerational interactions, and family friendly interpretation.

If you are interested in commissioning bespoke training, please contact Laura Bedford, Head of Programmes: [email protected]

Family Friendly Museum Audits

“Thank you very much for this opportunity. Auditing our provision ourselves felt very much like we couldn’t see the wood for the trees and we got bogged down and distracted by all the other issues we face, so it’s really helpful to have a focused, clear and realistic report to work from to improve.”Carrie Canham, Curator at Ceredigion Museum

Do you want to get an external perspective on how your site can be more welcoming to children, young people and families? Then a Family Friendly Museum Audit might be for you. There are two delivery options:

Option 1

We will:

  • meet with staff to talk through what you want to get out of the audit, so we can tailor it to your organisation’s needs
  • carry out the audit and create a report with photos of your site, assessing the areas that work well and those that might need improving
  • make suggestions for how improvements might be made and bring in real examples from other organisations to inspire you.

Option 2

We will:

  • meet with staff to talk through what you want to get out of the audit, so we can tailor it to your organisation’s needs
  • carry out the audit and create a mini report focusing on suggestions for how improvements might be made and bring in real examples from other organisations to inspire you
  • provide three hours of virtual mentoring time with the consultant to help you implement the changes following the mini audit report.

Cost including VAT: £1,500.
Optional mentoring add-on: £200 per session.

If you would like to book an audit for your organisation, please contact Laura Bedford, Head of Programmes: [email protected]

Consultancy

We can also offer a range of bespoke support for individual organisations or regional groups.

To learn more and discuss your museum’s needs, please contact Laura Bedford, Head of Programmes: [email protected]