More than 800,000 people across the UK live with dementia and the forecast is that one in three people over the age of 65 will develop the condition. So what role, if any, can museums play in helping sufferers and society cope?
Museums have been working with the UK’s ageing population for many years, through reminiscence work, outreach, and dedicated programming and events.
The Therapeutic Museum theme at this year’s Museums Association conference will examine the challenges and scope of this work.
In the past few years, several museums have turned their attention to the specific issue of dementia. National Museums Liverpool’s House of Memories and Art for Older People at Dulwich Picture Gallery are among the projects that have led the way in working with dementia sufferers and their carers.
And there is increasing evidence that this work has a real and measurable impact on individual and community wellbeing.
This issue of Museums Journal features a roundtable discussion with charities and other stakeholders that have worked with museums to reach members of the public that do not normally participate.
All the participants at the roundtable were keen to do more work with museums and were clear that museum staff, venues and collections could add value to what they do.
They didn’t view it as duplicating effort or chasing the same pots of funding, but saw it as broadening the impact that both the charity and museum can have.
There will be some people working in museums who will argue that this kind of work is peripheral or question whether museums should be doing it at all.
But identifying a problem, building on areas of work that museums are skilled in, using collections and staff expertise to reach out to isolated individuals and tackling an issue that could impact on all our lives is absolutely the right thing to do.
Sharon Heal, editor, Museums Journal
sharon@museumsassociation.org
www.twitter.com/sharonheal
www.museumsassociation.org/conference
Museums have been working with the UK’s ageing population for many years, through reminiscence work, outreach, and dedicated programming and events.
The Therapeutic Museum theme at this year’s Museums Association conference will examine the challenges and scope of this work.
In the past few years, several museums have turned their attention to the specific issue of dementia. National Museums Liverpool’s House of Memories and Art for Older People at Dulwich Picture Gallery are among the projects that have led the way in working with dementia sufferers and their carers.
And there is increasing evidence that this work has a real and measurable impact on individual and community wellbeing.
This issue of Museums Journal features a roundtable discussion with charities and other stakeholders that have worked with museums to reach members of the public that do not normally participate.
All the participants at the roundtable were keen to do more work with museums and were clear that museum staff, venues and collections could add value to what they do.
They didn’t view it as duplicating effort or chasing the same pots of funding, but saw it as broadening the impact that both the charity and museum can have.
There will be some people working in museums who will argue that this kind of work is peripheral or question whether museums should be doing it at all.
But identifying a problem, building on areas of work that museums are skilled in, using collections and staff expertise to reach out to isolated individuals and tackling an issue that could impact on all our lives is absolutely the right thing to do.
Sharon Heal, editor, Museums Journal
sharon@museumsassociation.org
www.twitter.com/sharonheal
www.museumsassociation.org/conference