Breaking down barriers for family visits at your museum
The coming week brings with it the International Day of Families, International Museum Day and the re-opening of indoor attractions in England. It feels like an opportune time to consider what museums and heritage sites can do to make families feel more welcome.
To find out more about the barriers to visits faced by families and how museums can help overcome them, we spoke to Kids in Museums’ Executive Director, Alison Bowyer.
Kids in Museums works with museums, heritage sites and cultural organisations across the UK to make them more welcoming for children, young people and families. Their website is packed with programmes and practical advice on making your museum more accessible and family friendly, including useful guidance on how to respond to the Black Lives Matter movement, how you can use TikTok and a series of insightful case studies. But if you only do one thing, read their Manifesto. It lays out what children, young people and families think makes somewhere a great place to visit.
1. In what ways are museums still failing to welcome or engage with children?
In general, I think museums are working hard to engage children, families and young people, but what you notice when you look at museum audiences overall is that there are groups of children who are still underrepresented.
If you're a child with a disability or life-limiting illness, you're much less likely to visit a museum than a child who has no health problems. This not only affects the child with a disability but their siblings, friends and family, who are also potentially excluded or much less likely to visit.
We also see far lower visitor numbers from children from some non-white backgrounds. Particularly, children from black African and black Caribbean backgrounds are far less likely to visit a museum than a white child.
And even with free admission, children from lower socio-economic background families are much less likely to visit a museum than a middle-class child, so there are still areas that we really need to work on to ensure that there is equality of access to museums.
2. What are the main benefits to museums of actively welcoming and engaging with children?
There are benefits for everybody. For the children, it helps with learning. It helps with wellbeing. We know that people under 30 particularly value museums as places to go to relax and destress. Research shows it promotes civic engagement and participation in your community, and children who visit museums with their families - not on school trips but with their families - are far more likely to become lifelong museum visitors than their peers.
That's valuable in and of itself, but it’s also worth recognising that the things that museums might do to be more welcoming and engaging for children tend to end up benefitting all visitors. Simple things such as improving signage help everybody. It's not only children who enjoy playful, fun interpretation. Adults want to have fun too! Having a broader range of food in your cafe will be appreciated by people with dietary restrictions.
I also think that museums should be joyful spaces, and children and families as visitors are a big part of that; their full participation is part of what brings a museum to life for everyone.
3. What are the main barriers to more children visiting museums more often?
There are barriers around facilities and ticketing but I think there are also things to do with perception of museums, and confidence in being a museum visitor.
Regarding facilities, it sounds simple but if you have a child with a disability, there are lots of barriers such as accessible toilets. If you've got a baby, you might need a place to breastfeed. If you can't afford to buy food and eat in cafes, you need somewhere to eat your own sandwiches. These can all be barriers. But it's not only about the museum having those facilities, it's about the museum telling people they have them - information can be a barrier.
One simple change we encourage all museums to make is to put a section of information for families on their website to give people information such as where they can put a buggie and eat their food. Families like to plan. Taking two or three children out isn’t simple so anything you can do to make that easier is a good thing.
4. My kids are bolters and I’ve certainly felt embarrassed about them running around and being noisy in museums in the past. How do you recommend museums respond to those kinds of situations?
As well as facilities, there's work to do around staff training and building up staff confidence. We know from talking to museum staff that they're sometimes worried that they are going to do something wrong. There are always safeguarding concerns with children so building staff confidence around how to engage and welcome families, and thinking through the best way to manage situations like the one you described, is vital.
In most cases, children running around is perfectly fine, but it’s quite a journey to get staff to feel confident that that is okay. Play is how children explore the world and learn. We want to find more ways that museums can enable that kind of free playing type of exploration for children because it's really valuable.
The other thing this raises is a perception issue. We know from talking to people who don't feel so confident about visiting a museum that worrying about breaking the rules is a massive off-putting factor. We want to change that perception of what museums are like, and encourage people to see museums as places for everyone and not places that are quiet where you have to behave in a certain way.
5. What simple changes can museums make to have a big impact on their welcome for kids?
Make sure that good pre-visit information is available on your website so families can plan their visit. The Museum of London does this really well; they have all that practical information but they also have three simple things that you can do with your family on a visit. This helps make the idea of a visit seem more accessible, less intimidating, and gives it some structure.
Think about what it’s like for a family to come into your space, from start to finish. If you have volunteers with families or grandchildren, maybe get them to visit and feedback so you can get a sense of what it's like.
If you can, invest in some training for your staff so they feel confident interacting with families. Kids in Museums has some resources on our website about this. It’s simple things like getting staff and volunteers to feel confident saying hello, to point out key facilities and family activities and also giving them some basic training about how to handle difficult situations in a way that doesn't leave the family feeling humiliated.
6. Are there any areas where museums are repeatedly failing younger visitors?
This comes back to relevance. Older young people, from secondary school age to early 20s, don't feel that museums are particularly relevant to them as visitors. Last year, a report about DCMS-sponsored museum visit trends showed only 12% of 16-to-24-year-old visitors thought that museums in central London explored issues and stories relevant to them, which is stark. They want to see museums address different issues, particularly around social justice.
It’s also about welcome for this group. It can be difficult to acknowledge but, as we don't really expect to find groups of young people visiting a museum, some staff might wonder what they're doing there. In the same way that families don't want to be judged because their kids make noise, 15 and 16-year-olds visiting in a group on their own don't want to be judged just because they're 15 and 16-year-olds.
7. Which museum do you think caters for families particularly well?
The museum that won our Family Friendly Museum Award most recently is a great example. The Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum is a tiny museum in Fife, Scotland. It's about the life of Andrew Carnegie, which you wouldn't say is a naturally family-friendly subject.
They’ve genuinely thought hard about the whole visit, from start to finish, and you can see that in the comments from the families. Their staff have been trained to be amazingly welcoming and helpful throughout. They’ve made the museum really easy to navigate by colour coding the zones. And they’ve created a lanyard for families that outlines activities to do in each of the coloured zones. A very simple thing really, but it gives the visit structure and all the activities are fun.
They've taken the subject of Andrew Carnegie's life and asked, ‘What about this industrialist might children engage with?’ They picked up on some slightly quirky things, such as when Andrew Carnegie was young he bred rabbits - so the museum has a rabbit trail! They've created really nice links back to that heritage. They've also got places where kids can just sit and draw or play.
They do it all on a tiny budget, too - the year they entered, their budget for family events and activities was £1,000 pounds, so they're also a really good example that this work doesn't have to cost a fortune.
Further reading: four reports that take a deep dive into museums and audience engagement:
- Taking Park 2019-2020: the Taking Part Survey provides reliable national estimates of engagement with the arts, heritage, museums and libraries.
- DCMS-sponsored museum visit trends (March 2020): An analysis of factors impacting on visits to DCMS-sponsored museums, and where Alison got her information about the relevance of museums to older young people.
- Audience Agency Museum Audience Report (November 2018): demonstrates the breadth of people museums are able to engage through their diverse appeal, collections, learning activities and specialist knowledge, including a good breakdown by age and ethnic background. It also shows the importance of families to museum audiences overall.
- School Groups vs. Family Visitors: Which Kids Come Back As Adults?
