Community engagement supports museums to develop relationships with audiences, generate visitors, become more relevant, build trust with audiences, and give audiences a sense of ownership over a museum and its collections. It also provides an invaluable opportunity to understand audience needs and desires, and design services and content that meet these needs.
This 2 x 2-hour virtual and interactive training helps participants develop confidence and skills in leading and supporting community engagement in museums.
Participants will:
- Learn how to strategically plan community engagement work, so it aligns with the vision, mission, and objectives for your museum and exhibition programme
- Learn about different types of audiences and identify which audience(s) you’d like to engage
- Understand different types of community engagement and identify which type(s) work best for your museum and audiences
- Understand how to build community-focused museums and exhibition programmes
- Learn about ethics and community engagement
- Learn how to identify and approach partners who can support community engagement*
- Develop facilitation skills to support community engagement
- Learn about tools to support evaluation community engagement
* Please note, The Exhibitions Group delivers additional training on Working in Partnership & Writing an Agreement that provides further advice and guidance on working in partnership.
The training will be delivered by Dr. Laura Crossley, a museums consultant and coach. Laura has 16 years’ experience in the museums and heritage sector, both in in-house and freelance consultancy roles. She specialises in engagement, consultation, co-creation, and audience development, as well as interpretation, evaluation, and workplace culture development. She is a strong advocate for audiences and champions practice that enables and empowers audiences to shape exhibitions and public programmes.
Laura has an AHRC-funded PhD in Museum Studies (2018) from the University of Leicester, in which she researched community engagement practice – including consultation and co-creation – in museums during the age of austerity, specifically focusing on how to create sustainable community engagement practice.
