About this course
This course will help people working in cultural and heritage venues and libraries find better ways to connect with young people. Young people* are often considered to be less interested in engaging with culture and heritage in their free time, but sometimes this is due to them feeling unwelcome and uncertain in venues. This can be because of invisible barriers that haven’t been considered.
Failing to engage young people now could lead to a future generation of adults disinterested in coming to or working with cultural and heritage organisations. It is therefore essential that greater effort is made to welcome and connect with young visitors, to safeguard for the future of the sector as well as meeting young people’s right to have access to quality arts and heritage.
In this course you will be supported to identify possible reasons why young people might not currently feel completely at ease in your venue. It will help you come up with practical, manageable changes you can make to encourage more teenagers to come in!
This I’m a Teenager…Get Me Into There online course has been developed by Curious Minds and is free for staff from cultural and heritage venues and libraries. It draws from a course originally created in partnership with the University of the First Age and from Curious Minds’ Hope Streets project. It includes resources created by young people working with Oldham Theatre Workshop. The course is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.
* For this course we define young people as 13-19 year-olds, and use ‘teenagers’ interchangeably with young people. You may define young people as people aged anywhere between 11 and 30, but for the purposes of this course we are interested in the ages when people usually become more independent and may visit cultural and heritage venues by themselves or with peers for the first time.
There are 3 ways to access this course
Online
Complete the course by yourself using the resources on this site, in your own time
Self Facilitated
Download a teaching pack to run activities yourself with your staff team or volunteers
Facilitated by Curious Minds
Arrange for Curious Minds expert facilitators to run this course with your organisation
This course is split into 6 modules
You can complete these in any order you choose, but we recommend finishing with ‘Mapping Your Venue’. Each module takes between 30-45 minutes to complete. The modules contain short pieces to read, short films and images, interactive activities, reflective exercises and more.
Perceptions of young people
Where do perceptions of teenagers come from and how do they affect how you welcome young people?
Written and Unwritten Rules
How do the rules and expectations in your venue affect young people’s experience when they visit?
Interactions with Young People
What can go right and go wrong when young people visit?
The teenage brain
How can a basic understanding of brain development help us relate to young people?
Red Zone / Blue Zone
A tool to help you understand unexpected behaviour and navigate challenging situations
Mapping Your Venue
Draw together your learning and create an action plan to make your venue more welcoming to young visitors
A Learning Experience to Suit You
You may like to take notes and share these with colleagues using our Learners’ Pack.
We don’t track your progress or assess you on this course and you can complete it at your own pace. The Learners’ Pack will help you keep track of the modules you have completed and allow you to report on your learning if you need to.
About Curious Minds
Curious Minds works to make high-quality creative and cultural learning opportunities available to all children and young people, both in and out of school. We do this by connecting teachers and youth workers with artists and creative practitioners; giving them access to information, expertise, space and resources to facilitate collaboration and innovation in the field of creative and cultural education.
Contact
About Hope Streets
Hope Streets is a project led by Curious Minds creating a strategic partnership between heritage and youth sectors in the North West.
Over five years (2018-2023), five museum partners (The Atkinson, Southport; Bolton Museum; Lancashire Museums; Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle; and West Cheshire Museums) have transformed the ways they work with young people. This includes the Festival of Hope, a youth-led celebration and exploration of hope and heritage, which can be explored online at festivalofhope.co.uk
I’m a Teenager…Get Me Into There has been delivered online and in person by Curious Minds with staff from Hope Streets partner museums. This digital version of the course has been created so we can reach more heritage organisations and other cultural venues around the UK and beyond, helping us share our learning from this project and encourage more venues to improve their work with young people.
If you enjoy this course and would like to continue and deepen your learning, Curious Minds can deliver further training, either in-person or online. Please get in touch to discuss this!
Hope Streets has been made possible thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Kick the Dust programme.
