Tees Valley Museums is a consortium of five local authority museum services, located in the northeast of England. Formed in 2017, our aim is to develop collaborative working for the purpose of delivering better services to the public and to promote pride in the history of the Tees Valley. One of the programmes we support our museums to deliver is Young Producers, a programme to encourage 16-25 year olds to engage with the museums in our region.
A 2020 UK government report suggested that only 12% of 16-24 year olds felt museums had anything relevant to say to them. We recognised that young people were significantly under-represented, not just in our museum services, but in the heritage sector more broadly in the UK. We also knew that within the Tees Valley, 18.5% of ward areas are classed as ‘left-behind’ meaning that they face the issue of significant deprivation, in addition to a lack of access to services – this compared with 4.5% on average across the whole of the UK. A report from 2024 also established that less than one in ten workers in the creative sector were from working-class households. We wanted to address the fact that many young people in our area faced multiple barriers to participation in our museums, but also that there was a need for young people to feel represented – to feel that museums were a space for them.
The Young Producers programme sought to remove as many of these barriers as possible whilst also creating a real sense of agency amongst the young people we work with. The critical part of the programme is that the young people have their own budget to deliver events and exhibitions as part of the programming in our venues, ensuring it is a real experience that offers benefits for personal and professional development. The Young Producers have created exhibitions related to personal experiences of teenage cancer and protest, co-curated an exhibition in partnership with the British Museum and delivered multiple workshops and events, from life drawing, photography and dress-up evenings to gong-sounding events and silent discos in art galleries. These programming ideas have been their own – they were requested by, planned by and led by young people.
During the awarding of the Kids in Museums ‘Best Museum Youth Group’ Award in 2024, the Young Producers was praised for its accessibility and inclusivity. We listened to what we could do to ease barriers to participation – we polled young people on the best days and times to meet, covered the cost of (and often booked) transport to and from venues and provided pizza at meetings as we understood young people would miss a meal to attend. We also provided an access fund, which young people could apply to if they felt they would be unable to attend for reasons of finance. Alongside this, we promoted the opportunity widely, including to partner charities and organisations that support young people through a range of challenging times. We worked in partnership with the charity Children Northeast to provide soft skills training opportunities and support throughout initial meetings – they also provided staff training for our museum teams to ensure best practice when engaging with young people. We know that 35% of Young Producers in our programme are from postcodes in the top 10% most deprived areas in the UK, according to the Indices of Multiple Deprivation and 16% of those who participate identify as being neurodivergent.
As we are a consortium of museums, we were able to start multiple Young Producers groups at different venues and bring them all together on occasion to explore career development opportunities. On a bi-monthly basis we provide a career visit to another venue in the north of England chosen by young people, where we may organise opportunities such as guided tours and question and answer sessions with staff at different stages of their careers and in different roles. This opens the eyes of our young people to career possibilities and recognises the many alternative ways into a career in heritage or the creative sector. We have also provided one-to-one shadowing opportunities across our museums for in-depth learning on specific areas of career interest.
No new programme goes without facing challenges. Across all of our partner museums, there was no consistent programming for young people before the introduction of the Young Producers. Some venues were hesitant about coming onboard, and some staff members were nervous about working with a demographic they had little experience of and initial staff reassurance and training was required. However, Preston Park Museum and the Hartlepool Museum Service were the first to run with the programme and the openness and flexibility of the staff teams in those venues was critical to the success of the programme. Young Producers meetings take place once a month at a museum or gallery, supported by a member of the museum team and myself – these are always on weekday evenings so having a supportive and flexible staff member who is enthusiastic and willing is essential.
Images by Dave Charnley
At Young Producers meetings, young people work on organising and planning an upcoming project. These sessions are supported by a variety of museum staff, depending on the topic of the project. For example, an upcoming exhibition may mean a discussion and planning session supported by the Exhibitions Manager. Young Producers work together in a supportive way to collaborate and agree roles and responsibilities, which has produced a natural beneficial learning environment; “...as a multiply disabled person I've found that traditional academic environments aren't the greatest at providing opportunities to develop any kind of skill unless you precisely fit into the mould of what they expect a young person to be, which is why I appreciate The Young Producers so much. It's just such a much more nurturing environment and I don't need to be wary of being treated like a burden because I can't keep up with everyone else, which has really allowed my networking and interpersonal skills to grow.”
We’re proud to have supported ten young people in to roles in the heritage and creative sectors, including one who has gone on to become part of the learning team at the Natural History Museum in London. The Young Producers programme is just the start of what will be further development of our engagement with this audience, including through paid work placements and engagement with under 16’s.
We recognise young people are experts in their own right – they are more politically engaged than ever before, care about their communities and the history of them and can bring creative and refreshing ideas to museum programming which provide rich audience experiences and inspiration for staff. At the beginning of 2024, we encouraged two of our Young Producers to join the Board of Tees Valley Museums, ensuring young people’s views are reflected at across all levels of our organisation.
We are not reinventing the wheel with Young Producers, however we are taking the wheel into ambitious and more challenging territory requiring additional commitment, flexibility and bravery from our museum services. Our challenge to others is a simple one: be brave enough to give young people some budget and freedom to explore programming on their own terms. Your institution and audience will not be disappointed.