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Volunteer call out for Touching Heritage project

By Betsy Lewis-Holmes, on 27 March 2013

Object Handling in the community

Object Handling in the community

If you are someone who is passionate about heritage, interested in health and wellbeing, and keen to volunteer in an innovative heritage-in-health project – we want to hear from you!

UCL Museums and Public Engagement is looking for a group of volunteers to take part in the Touching Heritage project, supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The programme aims to widen participation in cultural activities by taking museum objects out to healthcare communities that would otherwise be excluded from museum activities. One-to-one and group sessions led by facilitators will focus on the cultural, social and natural diversity of the objects in relation to participants’ own health and wellbeing. The experience will be enhanced by touching and handling objects traditionally associated with health and wellbeing, and by discussing how the objects feel, what they are made of or whether they resonate in other ways with participants.

We are currently seeking volunteers to train as facilitators of museum object handling sessions, and then to co-ordinate object handling sessions in community care settings such as care homes, day centres and sheltered housing.

Commitment to the project will vary depending on your availability. Ideally, you will be available and willing to participate in a short training programme in April 2013, and be able to conduct sessions once or twice a week, until July 2013.

The training programme will teach you everything you need to know about facilitating object-handling sessions and will give you some valuable skills in running your own arts/heritage-in-health activities. The training is hands-on and practical and will be full of fun, educational and team-based activities. By the end of the program, you will be ready to conduct object-handling sessions in a range of healthcare settings and be part of an inclusive and supportive team, ready to take museums to people who don’t have access to them.

You will be mentored and supported by the Outreach Co-ordinator in a team of volunteers, and you will gain skills in object handling processes and contribute to the Heritage in Healthcare research programme; learning about health and wellbeing in participatory cultural and heritage activities.

Please see the link to the job description, which has further information on how to apply. Please also have a look at the Touching Heritage blog.

TH-HtoH – Job description

Object handling session in a care home.

Object handling session in a care home.

For further enquiries, please contact:
Betsy Lewis-Holmes
Outreach Co-ordinator – Touching Heritage: Objects to Healthcare
b.lewis-holmes@ucl.ac.uk
020 7679 2211

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