Young Creative Consultants

Working with young people to make museums more attractive

A public campaign aimed at schools and youth groups in South Lincolnshire recruited ten 'Young Creative Consultants' to help museums in the area become more attractive to young people.

The consultants were recruited through an ‘Interest Day’ at Grantham Museum with the incentive of a free visit to a chosen heritage site in England (Imperial War Museum North) to keep them involved in the project.  The project saw the young people visiting different sites in the county to record their thoughts and views on the museums and heritage sites and where they felt improvements could be made.

As well as attending informal forum meetings at Grantham Museum, coordinated by email and SMS messaging, the creative consultants produced a “How to…” guide outlining how museums can attract more young people based on their findings from the Lincolnshire visits.

The 'Young Creative Consultants' model is a powerful way to increase engagement with young people and is being applied by other museums across Lincolnshire. The Collection in Lincoln is working with young creative consultants to provide ideas for new exhibitions, films, displays and interactives, as they work to encourage young people to participate more in their local cultural heritage.

Learning outcomes

• The time given by the young people counted towards the volunteering element of their Citizenship studies,
• The project gave them skills they can apply to the workplace, especially in the creative and communications industries, 
• The young people gained in self-confidence through the chance to share opinions and raise questions, knowing that they were contributing fresh ideas to the development of a service, 
• The young people’s attitudes towards museums and heritage changed. Visits to other museums helped to broaden their perceptions of heritage and a visit to ‘The Collection’ brought to life the relevance of Lincolnshire’s past and their place within it.