Wiltshire Museum has been shortlisted for the Kids in Museums Social Justice Award, it was announced today

Charity Kids in Museums has run a prestigious annual award since 2004, recognising the most family friendly heritage sites in the UK. From February to late April, families and museums across the UK could vote for their favourite heritage attraction on the Kids in Museums website. A panel of museum experts, children and young people then whittled down hundreds of nominations to a shortlist of 18 heritage attractions.

This year, a new category, Best Museum Youth Project: Social Justice, was introduced. In a recent survey about what young people think about museums, 88% said they felt it was important for them to address social justice issues. Young people want museums to tell stories that are relevant to them, give them space to think about big questions and understand their place in the world. This new award category is dedicated to museums that have given young people meaningful opportunities to explore social justice issues. It was open to museum applications only and will be judged by an expert panel, including young people. Wiltshire Museum is vying against two other museums in the Best Museum Youth Project: Social Justice category for our Street Art Project.

Wiltshire Museum’s Street Art project is a collaborative project with Wiltshire Council’s Youth Justice Service to provide an artistic platform for young people at risk of offending. When we talked with young people, they told us of their enthusiasm for Street Art. We were able to commission artist Nick Halahan to work with the young people, using items in our collections to inspire their artwork. This is the third year of that we have been able to run the project, with funding coming from Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioners Fund, Wiltshire Police and Wessex Museums.

Amy Hammett, Wiltshire Museum Community Curator, said:
The young people involved in the project have their own personal challenges to overcome and having their work recognised in this way gives me a feeling of great pride. Wiltshire Museum’s partnership working with Wiltshire Council’s Youth Justice Service has remained strong allowing us to engage with an underrepresented group and to allow their voices to be heard. This nomination will help this kind of work to continue and encourage other museums to create similar projects.

One of the participants in the project said:
It has given me confidence to share my artwork with others – before the project I did art but didn’t like to show people in case they laughed. People at the project liked my art so I don’t mind sharing it now. I am better at talking to people and socialising.

A case worker of one of the young people said:
Over the weeks I watched his self-esteem and confidence grow. He made new friends and interacted with other young people and adults. School told me he would take in pictures of the work he completed and show them. On the final session he told me he was “gutted” it was ending as he had really enjoyed being part of a group and felt he had achieved something. When I spoke to dad and step mum, they told me he was keen to share and talk about what he had done at the sessions – something he does not do with them in relation to school work.

Over the summer, the team at Wiltshire Museum will present their work to an expert panel. The panel will decide the winners to be announced at an awards ceremony in October.

Meanwhile the museums shortlisted in the other award categories will be visited by undercover family judges. Their experiences will decide a winner for each award category and an overall winner of the Family Friendly Museum Award 2025.
Follow the Family Friendly Museum Award on social media by following @kidsinmuseums and #FamilyFriendlyMuseum.
The Family Friendly Museum Award has been made possible by funding from Arts Council England.

Image Caption
Artist Nick Halahan, Case Workers and participants putting up their artwork banner at the Devizes Assize Court, the future home of the Wiltshire Museum.

Notes to Editors
About Wiltshire Museum
• Wiltshire Museum is home to the best Bronze Age archaeology collection in Britain and our mission statement is ‘Inspiring people to explore the archaeology, history and environment of Wiltshire’. The collections are Designated by Government as being of National Significance. Wiltshire Museum is an independent charity, with some revenue funding from Wiltshire Council and Devizes Town Council. The Museum is run by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (WANHS), a registered charity founded in 1853.
• We hold monthly clubs for children and young people; Curious Kids (2-5 years old), Museum Explorers (5-7 years old), Young Curators (8-13 years old), and Teencrafts (12-16 years old). We also have Young Trustee positions, in addition to a Youth Panel (ages 14-21), which meets twice a month as volunteers to plan and decide how to make the museum more accessible to young people.
• For further information contact Amy Hammett. amy.hammett@wiltshiremuseum.org.uk Tel 01380 727369

About Olas Art
For almost 15 years Nick Halahan has been a self-employed graffiti artist working under the name of Olas Art. He does commissioned artwork for people and businesses, while delivering graffiti art workshops for young people and community groups. Nick has painted murals all over the UK, from Edinburgh to Exeter, and internationally from Mexico to Spain. He is now based in Bristol, UK after many years working in and around West Yorkshire.
https://olasart.com/

About Kids in Museums
We are an award-winning charity dedicated to making museums open and welcoming to all children, young people and families. We support and champion family friendly organisations through wide-ranging initiatives, including the Family Friendly Museum Award and Takeover Day. We invite heritage organisations to sign up to our Manifesto, which sets out simple guidelines for making museums easy to reach for all ages. www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk

Find us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and BlueSky.

About the Family Friendly Museum Award
Kids in Museums began the Family Friendly Museum Award in 2004 to recognise heritage sites that are the most welcoming, fun and accessible for families.
Previous winners of the Family Friendly Museum Award include Young V&A (2024), Craven Museum (2023), the National Emergency Services Museum in Sheffield (2022), Bailiffgate Museum & Gallery in Alnwick (2021) and Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum in Dunfermline (2019).

The full list of museums shortlisted for the Family Friendly Museum Award 2025 is:

Best Accessible Museum
• The Beaney, Canterbury
• Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Halifax
• Worsbrough Mill Museum and Country Park, Barnsley

Best Small Museum
• Abbey House Museum, Leeds
• Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea
• Experience Barnsley Museum and Discovery Centre, Barnsley
• North Lincolnshire Museum, Scunthorpe
• Showtown Blackpool

Best Medium Museum
• The Amelia Scott, Tunbridge Wells
• Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle upon Tyne
• National Waterfront Museum, Swansea
• V&A Dundee

Best Large Museum
• The Burrell Collection, Glasgow
• Horniman Museum and Gardens, London
• London Transport Museum, London

Best Museum Youth Project: Social Justice
• Black Cultural Archives, London
• Glasgow Life Museums
• Wiltshire Museum

About Arts Council England
Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. From 2024 to 2026 we will invest over £440 million of public money from Government and an estimated £93 million from The National Lottery each year to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. www.artscouncil.org.uk.