A Warm Welcome

This post about the Museum’s inclusion initiative was contributed by AmeriCorps Museum Educator Abbey Jones.

At Providence Children's Museum, we strive to create an inclusive community for all visitors while sharing the power of play.  When developing the Play for All initiative in 2010, the Museum considered how to best ensure that each child and family member feels comfortable here. 

An inclusion initiative must be as multifaceted and diverse as the individuals it serves – encompassing visitors’ social, emotional or physical needs.  The best way to practice what we preach is by creating a culture of inclusion among Museum staff and volunteers.  Partnering with several organizations including the Rhode Island Developmental Disabilities Council and the Autism Project, staff and volunteers attended trainings about the experiences and needs of children with disabilities and their caregivers when visiting the Children's Museum, which prepared them to serve diverse visitors on a day-to-day basis and during special Welcome Events.

In cooperation with Children's Friend Early Intervention and The Rhode Island Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the Museum hosted Welcome Events during regular hours, so that their families could play for free with an organization they already felt connected to, and connect with each other.  Specialists and parents knelt together practicing colors and shapes with their children.  Two boys, initially strangers, left the registration room holding hands with one leading the other through the Museum.  One mother was delighted to be at the Museum while there were other families playing in exhibits using American Sign Language.

These events also introduced many first-time visitors to the Museum.  A mother sat and watched as her two children shared scarves with another boy in Play Power.  “This is my first time coming.  They're having so much fun,” she said.  “I love it!”  She shared with an Early Intervention specialist how easy it was for her to access the Museum by public transportation.

Acknowledging the challenges faced by families of children on the autism spectrum when visiting during regular hours, the Museum partnered with the Autism Project to host an after-hours Welcome Event for their members.  Families were able to play and have fun without the pressures of a typical Museum visit.  Children formed sand and clay in Discovery Studio, engaging their senses and getting lost in a quiet moment.  Families also tested out visual aids of exhibits and countdown timers to help plan and navigate a trip to the Museum.

“He had so much fun trying all the different activities – and no one judged him or looked at him or anything,” said one parent.  “It was great for all of us!”

Inclusion trainings and Welcome Events in 2012 were made possible with generous support from CVS Caremark and Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities.

An Interview with Jessica Holden Sherwood

Meet Jessica Holden Sherwood – a Museum member since 2004 who joined the Board of Directors in 2007 and became Board president in 2009.
How and why did you get involved with the Museum?
My children, now ages 6 and 8, went to the Museum for about a year before I ever did. My husband always returned raving about what a great place it was. I eventually learned it myself and checked the “interested in volunteering” box. I am a member of the Museum because it’s a great place to bring my children: an active, engrossing, commercial-free, educational great place. I am a supporter of the Museum because of its social services and its commitment to all children.

How has the Museum changed since you first became a member?
The obvious answer is the three new exhibits. Less obvious: small changes virtually every time we visit – under the admission desk, the window boxes of the ramp, toys on the floor with the blocks. Also, the environments are so rich, it can seem changed with each visit even if it isn't – you notice or focus someplace you never had before. Even less obvious: have successfully completed a $1.5 million capital campaign and we're deep in the black!

You’ve been part of the Museum’s long-range planning. What do you hope for its future?
That the Museum continues to serve families who can't afford to come, expands service to kids in Head Start and after-school programs and changes exhibits. That everyone in Rhode Island respects the Museum as a resource and advocate for children's well being.

How do you spend your time when you’re not busy with your Board duties?
Work as a sociologist, for URI and for Sociologists for Women in Society, an international association of a thousand feminist sociologists.

As a sociologist, what’s your perspective on the Museum’s work?
I am sensitive to the many ways in which inequalities get reproduced – or sometimes interrupted. I'm really pleased that the Museum is an "interrupter" rather than a "reproducer." On class, the Museum is available to poor and near-poor families, not just those who can afford the admission fee. On race: 1) the Museum teaches about our history of immigration, and 2) it's one of the few places that kids from all different backgrounds and neighborhoods mix it up together. On gender, the Museum is a welcome respite from the sexism that infuses way too much of children's recreation and even their education.

What about the work around play?
I think that American parents are typically anxious these days, about their children's futures. Let's not dismiss this as a sort of group neurosis. It makes perfect sense, given the socioeconomic insecurity that Americans confront. With fewer social supports than most other developed countries, in America much more (e.g. health care dependent on current job) is riding on individual achievement. The stakes are high.

So, parents feel they are serving their kids' best interest by scheduling almost all of their time. In disadvantaged neighborhoods, this can be to keep kids safe from threats. In affluent neighborhoods, this can be – consciously or unconsciously – the start of a lifetime of resumé-building, to get into a good college, in order to have a successful adulthood.

The message of the American Academy of Pediatrics and of the Museum is that unscheduled time serves the kids' interest, too. The Museum is helping play to get the respect it deserves! This message is healthy for both children and adults.

What is your kids’ favorite exhibit and why?
I don't think my kids have a favorite exhibit, although when they were younger it was Water Ways. Like I said, we find ourselves focusing on different places on different visits. This works best, of course, when I follow rather than try to lead – I stop myself from directing them. One day Abigail spent almost an hour sitting at the table of interlocking plastic shapes, working diligently until she had made a … dodecahedron, I think.

What’s yours?
I don't have a favorite exhibit, I have a favorite element: grown-up seating in each exhibit. Sometimes – especially in the most exhausted years of early parenthood – I just want to sit there and do nothing, comfortable knowing that the children don't need vigilant supervision while they're in the Museum.

I like how the Museum welcomes grown-up involvement in kids' play but doesn't require it. I was at a children's museum once where a sign instructed parents to put away their cell phones and play with their children. I understand the motivation for that message, but at the same time, I appreciate that Providence Children's Museum is also a guilt-free zone.

***

Thanks, Jessica! What do YOU think about Jessica's sociological perspective? About growing parental anxiety and overscheduling?

On a Journey to Support Play for All

This post was contributed by AmeriCorps Museum Educator Kate Jones.

Providence Children’s Museum staff members are constantly thinking about how best to support and relate to our diverse audience. In part, how can we ensure that everyone feels comfortable and empowered while playing? This can be challenging even beyond demographic variance, as every child is an individual and every family is a uniquely functioning unit that presents different needs. Yet together our visitors, board members, staff and partners make up a community of learners that support one another and the broader learning community as a whole.

Recently, Museum staff traveled down a less familiar path to continue this journey by creating opportunities to learn about and assess our overall accessibility as an institution – do we provide multiple points of access in our exhibits and programs to meet the diverse physical, intellectual, emotional and social needs of the populations we serve? Although there are ways in which the Museum already follows (and goes beyond) certain accessibility guidelines, it’s important for staff and volunteers to have ongoing training and new information around inclusion issues.

As a second year AmeriCorps member at the Museum, I have been fortunate to help in the formative stages of this project. Having a background in elementary/special education, I feel a strong connection to helping the Museum figure out how to apply fundamentals of educational inclusion to a public space like ours. A crucial aspect of this new initiative has been working to create a “buzz” among staff to keep our goal of accessibility and inclusion on people’s radar so that they feel comfortable and supported to learn. This has ranged from organizing Museum-based trainings to attending community events on disability and inclusion in the area.

From January to April, the RI Developmental Disabilities Council partnered with the University of Rhode Island's Physical Therapy Program and Rhode Island College's Paul V. Sherlock Center to present a Disability Inclusion Film Series. Each month, a different film related to issues on disability and inclusion was screened and followed with a panel discussion. Various staff and AmeriCorps members attended each session and participated in the discussions with thoughtfulness and enthusiasm.

The Tourette Syndrome Association of Rhode Island held an event at the Museum and gave us the documentary “I Have Tourette’s, but Tourette’s Doesn’t Have Me: Dispelling the Myth One Child at a Time,” which we viewed with staff. Although presented through the lens of children with a specific disability, this thought-provoking film brought up certain issues that all children who are perceived as “different” have to face. In addition, the film inspired a lively dialogue about the vast spectrum of learning and interaction styles of children, to which our society still seems to turn a blind eye by promoting a conventional learning “norm.”

In early March, staff and AmeriCorps were trained on how to meet the diverse needs of visitors, through exercises and information about how parents and caregivers of children with disabilities want other people to interact with them. The goal is that, when interacting with any family, to respect and empower every member. Whatever is going on with one member of the family is happening to the whole family; a child does not exist in isolation. At the Museum, this means engaging every member of the family – paying attention to siblings of children who have a disability label, too.

The responses to these efforts to promote awareness have been inspiring – I am often pleasantly surprised to find an email from a fellow staff member keeping me abreast of something going on in the community that might be a beneficial learning experience. In addition, I have been privy to many informal follow-up discussions that display the impact of this accessibility “buzz.”

As Museum staff continue to learn more about the challenges and experiences that children with disabilities and their families may encounter, our perspective will broaden and we will become better informed on how we can continue to create spaces and experiences through which ALL families feel they can have fun and play. By respecting and embracing exceptionality as natural and good, we help set the precedent that EVERY child and family is capable when their needs are supported.

The Museum was recently awarded $2,000 from CVS Caremark for inclusion training for Museum staff and volunteers. Stay tuned to learn where this will lead us next!