Workshop 5:
Kids in Museum

Laura Bedford

Over the past two years, UK charity Kids in Museums has worked closely with 16–25 year olds to understand their perceptions of museums and the changes they see as necessary to enable broader participation. Our workshop will explore this learning and some of the proposals for change from this process.

1. True or False: We’ll play a simple game to see how aware attendees are of young people’s perceptions of museums.
2. Young people as decision makers: Empowering young people to be involved in decision making in museums and cultural organisations is essential for the sector to change and engage more young people.

• Using Roger Hart’s Ladder of Participation, we will ask participants to assess the amount of power young people currently have in their organisation.
• We’ll then present some options that enable young people to increase the level of power they have in an organisation and explain where they feature on the Ladder (co-creation projects, youth panels or becoming directors or trustees).
• In smaller groups, we’ll explore the changes required to implement one of these options for increasing young people’s power.
• Each group will share their ideas and based on this sharing, each attendee can go away with an action plan for their organisation.