The Museums Association has developed a framework to help museums understand and improve their participatory practice and community engagement. Its aim is to provide benchmarks of best practice, to showcase excellence in this field and to support museums to develop strong and sustainable connections with their communities.
The framework can be used to help you reflect and learn, and to support a journey towards deeper and more sustainable community engagement and participation in collections practice.
There are many aspects of the framework that can be applied to support staff to confidently undertake collections work in a more democratised way. By aiming for the next level of participation museums staff can improve the relevance of their collections giving them the confidence to collect for future generations in a way that is representative of local communities.