Standards PLUS Course: Excelling at being Inclusive
A course supporting organisations to welcome families and audiences of all ages
Is your organisation committed to being inclusive? Would you like to ensure you’re embedding family-friendly and age-friendly practices across everything you do for audiences?
The Standards PLUS Course is designed to support you to excel at meeting the national accreditations for family-friendliness and age-friendliness in arts provisions. You can take both modules or choose to focus on excelling at being family-friendly or age-friendly.
The multi-part course offers bespoke and practical guidance to support your organisation to identify challenges, overcome your organisation’s unique barriers and develop tailor-made plans for positive change. The training is designed for organisations of all sizes – whether that’s multiple team members benefiting from your enrolment on the course, or one person who wears many hats making sure they’ve got all areas covered. We know how important it is to embed family-friendly and age-friendly practice across everything you do – from programming and messaging to ensuring the experience audiences have in-situ is accessible and inclusive.
If you work for an arts or heritage organisation, then you know that in 2026 it is essential that you are inclusive – yet embedding practices that cater to families and older audiences’ needs isn’t always easy. This is the ultimate course to help you.
About the Online Course
You can choose to take part in sessions focused on family friendliness or age-friendliness (or both!), each consisting of three webinars. The modules are developed from the national guidelines on the Family Arts Standards and Age-Friendly Standards, and each webinar runs for two hours (including breaks).
Family-Friendly Module
- Programming Focus: Tuesday 5 May, 2-4pm
- Messaging Focus: Tuesday 19 May, 10am – 12noon
- Welcome and Facilities Focus: Tuesday 9 June, 10am – 12noon
Age-Friendly Module
- Programming Focus: Tuesday 12 May, 10am – 12 noon
- Messaging Focus: Tuesday 2 June, 10am – 12noon
- Welcome and Facilities Focus: Tuesday 16 June, 10am – 12noon
Organisations can nominate between one and three team members to take part. Sharing places across your organisation means different colleagues can attend the sessions most relevant to their roles—for example, one person may join a marketing-focused webinar while another attends an operations session.
Who will your dream team be? Or are you an ambitious solo-act?
We’d love to have you as part of the Standards PLUS Cohort!
Learn with peers from across
the arts and heritage sector
Course Leader: Sarah Shaw
Sarah Shaw is a leading voice in the cultural sector, specialising in creating high-quality, family-friendly experiences. As Director of Museum Tales, she supports organisations of all sizes—from volunteer-led venues to national museums—to engage and inspire family audiences.
Sarah has taken many roles in the sector from National Family Interpretation Manager at English Heritage to Learning Manager at the British Library. She is also an experienced trainer, having worked with GEM, Kids in Museums and Artswork to build skills and confidence in family engagement across the sector.
As a trainer for the Family Arts Campaign, Sarah brings practical expertise, strategic insight and a strong commitment to making culture accessible, inclusive and welcoming for all families.
Designed for You
Accessible for different organisations
The programme content is designed to support embedding the Standards in a range of organisations and contexts, including both venue and non-venue based organisations regardless of size, from small community hubs to larger national providers. The training is relevant for all art-forms from music halls and museums, to festivals, theatre companies, heritage venues and everything in between.
Bespoke to your needs
We will ask you about your organisation’s needs ahead of the training to ensure this course is a bespoke tailored experience. In addition to expert guidance, you’ll also have lots of opportunity for peer-learning. We keep the cohort small so you can be part of a supportive network you can connect with – all committed to being inclusive.
Based on recent research
The course has been developed in response to the findings of national research with families, arts and heritage organisations and specialists in family and age-friendliness. The research took place during 2024-2025 conducted by Flying Geese, a consultancy for the arts, heritage and culture sector, and has helped us to understand what families and older peoples need and want from arts and cultural organisations.
Choose one module, or both…
Family-Friendly
Explore the Family Arts Standards in depth
Get tailored, practical guidance on how the Family Arts Standards can actively support and strengthen your work in real-world settings.
Learn how to bring your whole organisation with you
Discover effective ways to integrate family-focused thinking across teams, and build the confidence to champion family-friendly change at leadership level.
Learn in a supportive cohort
Participate in guided, interactive sessions that create a welcoming space to share experiences, challenges, and practical solutions with peers.
Take a fresh look at your practice
Use structured reflection tools to review your family offer, recognising strengths and uncovering new opportunities to grow and improve.
Age-Friendly
Understand the Age-Friendly framework
Delve into the Age-Friendly Standards with clear, actionable guidance that helps you embed them into real-life programming and organisational strategy.
Build Age-Friendly buy-in across teams
Learn how to introduce age-friendly principles across departments, and develop the confidence to influence senior decision-making and policy.
Connect through shared learning
Join facilitated conversations designed to foster peer support, shared learning, and collaborative problem-solving in a respectful environment.
Refresh your Age-Friendly approach
Use reflective exercises to assess your offer for older people, identifying existing strengths and potential areas for development.
PLUS attendees can opt into a follow-up call with the Family Arts team — a chance to reflect on progress, address sticking points, and receive further tailored support as your work develops.
Catch up on our information video:
Build family and age-inclusive
practice that lasts
What will you and your organisation get out of the course?
- Build a strong understanding of best practice in family and age-friendly provision, with practical insight into what works across arts, culture, and heritage settings.
- Develop more inclusive approaches to communication, welcome, and operations, alongside improved staff and volunteer training, to better support families and older visitors.
- Identify priority areas for change within their organisation, and create a clear, achievable action plan to support ongoing progress.
- Achieve “Standards Plus” holder status, gaining access to additional resources and marketing materials to help promote their commitment to family and age-friendly work to local audiences and communities.
- Receive tailored support from the Family Arts team, including feedback on action plans and guidance to help inform and influence senior leadership decision-making.
On completion of the course, participants will also receive a “Standards Plus” badge and a set of additional assets to use across their communications and on-site materials, helping to visibly champion their commitment to welcoming families and older audiences.
Limited spaces available—
book early to secure your place.
Book Your Place
We want your course experience to be tailored to your organisation’s needs, with opportunities to explore barriers, connect with peers, and develop practical plans that work for you. For this reason, spaces are limited and we recommend booking early.
You only need to book once per organisation, with a choice to pay now or by invoice. You can confirm which team member(s) will attend at a later date.
Family-Friendly Module
£295 for Large Orgs (10+ Employees)
£195 for Small Orgs/Freelancers
Age-Friendly Module
£295 for Large Orgs (10+ Employees)
£195 for Small Orgs/Freelancers
Family AND Age-Friendly Modules
£495 for Large Orgs (10+ Employees)
£295 for Small Orgs/Freelancers
The price includes:
- Participation in three online workshops per module, led by an expert facilitator to learn new techniques to improve your family / age-friendly offer.
- Expert advice to help you assess changes needed for better inclusive work in your organisation.
- Reflective activities to help improve your work in communications, staff training, operations and your welcome to your local audiences.
- Tools to monitor your work for families / age-friendly audiences.
- Support to help create change across your organisation and encourage senior leadership “buy-in”.
- Additional resources to promote your commitment to family / age-friendly work, including new logos, assets and marketing support.
- Opportunity to network with a close group of peers also commited to inclusive work.
- Follow up call with the Family Arts team to support you further.
FAQs
What kind of organisations is this course aimed at?
Any arts or heritage organisations interested in embedding inclusivity across what they do – with the option to focus on being family-friendly, age-friendly or both.
The course is designed to support both venue and non-venue based organisations of all sizes, including small and grassroots organisations. The Family Arts Campaign is committed to supporting all art forms for families, from music and museums to festivals, theatres, heritage and everything in between.
Programme content is tailored to each cohort, ensuring it is relevant, practical and accessible regardless of an organisation’s size or capacity.
How many team members can sign up, and can they attend all the sessions?
Organisations may nominate 1, 2 or 3 team members to take part in the course. The programme is structured so that different team members can attend the sessions most relevant to their roles.
If all 3 team members would like to join the same webinar, we welcome this.
Do we need to have decided who in our organisation will attend when we book?
No, you can nominate who in your team will attend later.
What if one of the session dates doesn’t work for me?
If you are unable to attend one of the sessions, you are very welcome to invite a team member / colleague to attend in your place! If you aren’t able to attend, we will be able to send you the resources from the workshop to review in your own time.
Can we pay via invoice?
Yes! This is an option to pay via invoice at point of purchase.
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If you have any further questions we haven’t answered here, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Willow Bowen on willow.bowen@familyarts.co.uk.
Image credits:
Header: Wild Rumpus, photo by Leyla Guler
1 – Sadlers Wells, photo by Ellie Kurttz
2 – Hull Truck Theatre, photo by Tom Arran
3 – darts, photo by James Mulkeen