The cognitive and social development of children under five is enhanced by engaging in creative and playful interactions with their parents and caregivers, and an enriching home learning environment. Museums and cultural organisations – with their inspiring spaces and collections, expert learning teams and access to artists, performers and makers – are well placed to engage families in creative and playful activities that build parenting skills and underpin key areas of child development.

The Arts Practice and fairer start mission team at Nesta have partnered with Art Fund, the charity that connects museums, people and art. Together we are exploring how museum interventions could support parents and caregivers with children under the age of five in creative, playful ways, encourage parent and child interaction and empower parents and caregivers to build new skills and confidence.

Phase 1 of the project explored how museums could engage and support a priority group of families impacted by different forms of disadvantage who may not currently engage with museum activities.

By understanding the barriers to engagement with museums, we can start to identify meaningful ways to connect parents and caregivers with cultural organisations in order to enhance their skills and capabilities and support the development of children through enriching creative and playful activities.

Children who benefit from warm and high-quality interactions with their parents/caregivers in home learning environments are more likely to build skills and capabilities that help them thrive when they start school. A child’s home learning environment includes relational contexts and experiences both inside and outside of the home, for example: shared creative activities like painting or drawing, singing songs together or being read to, being taken on a visit to the library or cultural organisation. Availability of resources is also important (including physical space, toys, books, and art materials). Evidence shows that play and creativity are central to a child’s development in the early years and beyond. Museums and cultural organisations are well placed to support play and creativity, with the infrastructure, collections, creative expertise, access to material resources and social remit to deliver.

Evidence shows that the quality of these experiences and interactions is more important for child development than parental occupation, education or income. However, families living in disadvantage can be at risk of lower quality home learning environments due to the negative impacts of poverty. Supporting these families in particular can lead to improved outcomes for children.

Over July and August, Nesta and Art Fund prototyped a project with three museums with expert early-years learning teams: the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (the Great North Museum: Hancock / Discovery Museum, Newcastle) and The Whitworth, Manchester.

In this phase we wanted to gather insights about engaging and working with priority groups of families in each location -– and how to build on existing relationships, activities and resources within communities. We hoped to build understanding on barriers to engagement and on working with local services and charities as intermediaries to reach and support families. We also wanted to identify some early signals of the impact of museum interventions on parents and children and to learn more about early years practice in the sector.

A series of facilitated interventions were delivered to families with children under five in each museum. These sessions included playful and creative activities supporting interactions between parents/caregivers and their children, and take-away creative materials and prompts. Each setting worked with local community partners and charities eg, Child and Family Centres, local school nurseries, and charities supporting sanctuary seeking families and families living in disadvantage.

The project partners held regular online discussion sessions as a group and we worked together to provide dedicated support (including design thinking, evaluation and monitoring) where needed.

Evaluation of the programme is being carried out following the summer prototype and will focus on: identifying insights about engaging and working with families and local community partners, highlighting key themes and identifying possible routes to future impact and scale.