Family Arts Standards – why sign up?

At the start of the Family Arts Campaign, we carried out extensive research to find the key issues when encouraging more families to engage with the arts. This isn’t just about the concert, show or exhibition they might be visiting, but about their overall experience.

In our research 68% of families said the welcome they receive was “essential or very important”, and many commented that even if the event had been good, if the welcome was poor they would not return. In fact 1 in 7 families said that they had felt unwelcome when attending events.

So how can the Family Arts Campaign help you to improve your family welcome and encourage families to attend your events? We have been working with the Family and Childcare Trust and a group of arts organisations to create the Family Arts Standards. Launched in September 2013, they are designed as a benchmark for organisations providing an exceptional welcome to families when attending an arts event – covering key areas such as programming and promotion, consultation with families, and facilities.

Along with the Standards themselves, we have produced guidance for arts organisations and a helpful checklist that will enable you to identify areas in which you are doing well and other areas that you might want to improve.

Fantastic for Families

Another key finding from our research was that 79% of families said there was a need for a nationally-recognised “family friendly” logo, so that they could easily find events and performances that would be suitable for them. Families, especially those with older children, don’t just want to come to “family events”, but may not have thought that a particular event is for them – so we created the Fantastic for Families logos, only available to organisations that sign up to the Standards. There are 3 categories: families with children aged 0+, 6+ and 12+.

The Family Arts Standards are here to meet an identified need of both the arts sector and families. They are straight-forward and focused and will be monitored by the families themselves who will be encouraged to give feedback. By highlighting appropriate opportunities for a family audience you may well reach families who might not otherwise have considered attending your event, and by signing up the Standards, you will be indicating to them that you want to welcome them and they are an important part of your audience.

So find out more and sign up to the Family Arts Standards here!