RAMM has been nominated in the Visitor Accessibility category at the Museums + heritage Awards 2025
Following a long-term commitment to accessibility across the museum, RAMM has been nominated for a Visitor Accessibility Award in the prestigious awards.
Over the past two years the museum has created an Accessibility Champions group of 11 colleagues from the Audience Development, Collections and Visitor Services teams. Members ranged from top management to museum assistants, digital and exhibitions officers.
Accessibility has become a defining feature of RAMM, supported by management and staff across teams, including cleaning colleagues, designer, curators, visitor services and audience development. Staff work together to listen to each other and the public. When surveyed, 96% of respondents who identified as disabled or having a long-term health condition in 2023-24 responded that they did not encounter any barriers to their RAMM visit.
RAMM Engagement Officer Ruth Gidley said:
There are so many ways that a museum visit can light up your year. But people face a huge variety of challenges just to get to us. We’re putting all our heads together to find ways around obstacles so everyone can enjoy this space and these inspiring objects.
Following recommendations and training from an external heritage access advocacy group, we have:
- taken a proactively broad definition of practical and emotional access needs – from Deafness, learning disabilities, mobility and visual impairment to anxiety, cognitive impairment (including dementia), dietary requirements, neurodiversity and sensory differences;
- shared responsibility for new stances and actions on diversity, equality and inclusion through a voluntary, teamwide Accessibility Champions group;
- viewed accessibility as relevant for inclusion of colleagues and visitors alike
- regularly updated training for staff and volunteers;
- harnessed current technology to enhance collections access within the building, before visits, and off-site.
This approach has resulted in a long list of actions and projects, including: a new inclusive recruitment process for our Skills Development Programme; training in alt text for website content; new relaxed sessions for entire museum to allow quieter visits with limited numbers; monthly Museum Meet-Ups for over-50s with anxiety; age-friendly outreach at care homes, hospitals, social housing; multiple opportunities for artists with protected characteristics; and much more.
