1. Be welcoming
No cost
- Run training with public facing staff and volunteers to create a more family friendly environment. Think about how you greet family visitors and how you can let them know what they can do during their visit. For more confident public facing staff and volunteers, think about how you can make interactions with families more playful.
Resource: Watch our training films and read Welcoming families to your venue. Check out our Play resources and case studies for more playful ideas. - Move family events into the galleries so they’re more visible to other families and museum staff.
- Think about becoming a Safe Place.
Low cost
- Buy a lollipop sign or display boards to communicate activities to families as soon as they arrive at the museum.
- Buy family friendly badges or sashes for staff and volunteers to wear during busy family events. This helps families identify staff when they have questions or need help.
- Pilot family friendly labels so they know what they can and can’t touch, or to share key information about your collections.
Resource: There are some amusing examples in this Twitter/X thread from Mar Dixon. - Pilot easy-to-read family friendly interpretation so families can explore your collections.
Resource: Leeds Museums and Galleries has a guide on creating concise and inclusive interpretation for all visitors.
2. Be accessible to all
No cost
- Improve your website by adding an access page, visual story or sensory map to help all visitors to plan their visits.
Resource: Get started by looking at Heritage Access 2022 report and its useful benchmarking tool to see how your site is performing. Read SEND in Museums website guidance and the Visit Britain: Create an Accessibility Guide, which includes an example web page template. - Think about how much a day out at your museum might cost. Can you include some lower cost options to be more accessible to a range of families?
Resource: Our Flexible Family Ticket Guidelines, Museum Cafés and Museum Shops resources can provide a useful framework. We also have a guide to supporting families during the cost of living crisis.
Low cost
- Run consultation sessions with a local group to improve your access provision for families and other visitors. In exchange for people giving their time, you could give them a voucher for the shop, café or something similar.
Resource: Museum Tales has written a useful blog about consulting with families. - Buy some kit to support a range of visitors, such as ear defenders, torches, fidget toys or magnifiers.
Resource: The SEND in Museums website has great advice about creating sensory backpacks.
Read our access resources or visit the SEND in Museums website for other ideas for making your venue more accessible.
3. Make it easy and comfortable
No cost
- Find out if you can sign up to the Breastfeeding Friendly Scheme or contact a local breastfeeding network to learn about becoming breastfeeding welcome.
- Create in-house activities, such as colouring sheets for children to do in the café (if you have one).
Resource: Read our Family Café Standard Checklist and our Museum Cafés and Museum Shops resources for more ways you can make your facilities family friendly. - Move chairs to unused spaces to create ‘family-friendly’ areas or provide spaces where families can eat their own food.
- Offer free tap water and sign up to Refill.
Low cost
- Buy a pop-up gazebo for families to eat lunch under or as a space to park prams.
- Buy booster steps so young children can reach sinks/toilets or displays.
- Buy supplies of nappies, wipes and sanitary products. This can help families or young people who are caught short during a visit.
- If visitors are not able to use buggies in your galleries, consider providing a sling/hip carrier that they could borrow.
- Buy children’s books relating to your collection and boxes to store them in. Place them near seating areas so families can help themselves and feel welcome to stop and read. Ensure they are reflective of a diverse range of families.
Resource: The Book Trust provides useful themed booklists to help you include non-heteronormative and anti-racist publications. - Think about creating a Quiet Space in your museum, particularly for busier days. This could be a pop-up space, such as a portable tent set up near activities with cushions and sensory toys inside.
Resource: See our Autism in Museums and SEND in Museums resources for more information.
4. Remember families come in all shapes and sizes
No cost
- Undertake visitor surveys to help you find out what kinds of families are visiting you, as well as the potential visitors you might be able to attract.
Resource: The AIM Understanding Your Audiences guide includes low and no cost ways to collect visitor data. - Create simple paper-based trails or self-guided materials in house for different age groups. For older children, can you ask young people who are doing work experience placements, Duke of Edinburgh Award or Takeover Day to work with you on a resource?
- Use inclusive language when interacting with families. This can help everyone to feel welcome and seen.
Resource: Our LBGTQ+ resource provides information about inclusive words and phrases to use when referring to families and children.
Low cost
- Create a consultation group, such as a family forum or focus group, to help improve your family provision.
- Buy open-ended, self-guided resources to help families to explore, such as binoculars, books, soft mats, toys suitable for under 5s or pocket dice.
Resource: The Museum of London has created a useful guide to creating self-guided resources for under 5s. - Invest in some family friendly illustrations that can be used across your printed and online materials, from trails to events brochures, to make them easily identifiable by families.
Resource: We like this example from the Museum of the Order of St John in London.
5. Communicate well
No cost
- Add a family page to your website to help families plan their visit and to let them know they are welcome at your venue. Here’s an example from the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum. (The Great North Museum: Hancock even has a web page on how it meets the Kids in Museums Manifesto!)
Resource: Look at our Family web page template to help you design your own web page for families. - Use social media and external networks to engage with visitors and attract new families to visit. Encourage families to take photos of their visit and share them on their social media accounts. Join local Facebook groups and use event listings sites, like our family events calendar. Think about how you can positively respond to TripAdvisor reviews.
- Think about how word of mouth can help you attract families – for example, can you hand out a flyer to children after a school trip? Do any of your staff or volunteers have any connections with school teachers or local uniformed groups?
- Run a Digital Takeover Day with local young people. This can be a great way to encourage more young people to visit your venue as having a good digital experience has been found to inspire this audience to want to visit a museum or heritage organisation.
- Build up a collection of high-quality images of families enjoying different aspects of your museum. Ensure they are inclusive of different types of families and representative of your local community.
Resource: Our Marketing your museum to families resource includes tips on how to do this.
Low cost
- Run a stall at a local community event or fair.
- Run an outreach session with a community partner.
- Create flyers to share in local libraries, cafés, schools and other places visited by families. Remember to upload them to your website too.
6. Be an active part of your community
No cost
- Create displays of work by children, young people and families in workshop or gallery spaces.
- Feature favourite objects chosen by children, young people and families online.
- Run a Digital Takeover Day or Takeover Day and use the event to consult with children and young people.
Low cost
- Co-create displays, including objects and labels within existing displays, with children, young people and families.
Resource: Here’s an example from the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge. - Co-produce events with children and young people.
Resource: Here’s an example of a project from Woodhorn Museum in Northumberland. - Set up a Youth Panel to give young people a voice in your organisation.
Resource: Take a look at our guide on how to do this. - Think about providing space for local family or young people’s groups to use.
- Gain feedback and consult with local children, young people and families about what they want to do in your museum.
Resource: Share East have created a comprehensive evaluation toolkit which includes non-traditional methods of collecting useful data. - Think about how you can support children and families’ wellbeing and act on issues that matter to them.
Resource: Read our resources about promoting wellbeing, responding to the climate and ecological emergency and developing anti-racist practice.
Heritage organisations can sign up to the Kids in Museums Manifesto at any time on our website.
If your organisation has signed our Manifesto, send us an explanation and an image of one great thing you’re doing to welcome families: [email protected] We’ll share it as part of our #ManifestoMonday social media feature to help inspire others and share best practice.
Files for this Resource
Tags: Guide, Tips, Welcome, Welsh Language
Categories: Manifesto
Audience: Family
