Working towards wellbeing without any budget Mind over Matter Working towards wellbeing without any budget

Who we are what we do York Museums Trust has over two hundred and fifty active volunteers across three museums in the City of York at any one time. The volunteers team manage their recruitment, training, activities and wellbeing while they are part of our network. 70% of them are visitor facing, engaging with the public and interpreting collections. The remaining 30% are behind the scenes with departments assisting in collections care. Our team of volunteers give visitors the opportunity to connect with history and the stories of real people. We have over 100 members of staff across three museums on a variety of contracts from zero hours to permanent like most organisations. Public facing staff is by far the majority with departs of curatorial, learning, marketing, membership, digital, events and H&S. In such a large organisation spanning a city communication and cohesion can be difficult. We have, with the support of the SMT and HR, have begun to assess and implement H&W initiatives. Quite often H&W is not new to heritage organisations, it is something have done for decades but it is important to value this impact on our visitors and volunteers and begin to look at our staff as well.

Museum Development Yorkshire The group will meet three times in the 2016 financial year The meetings included training, networking and an opportunity for peer review Each museum has developed their own H&W resource or event There was small implementation fund of c.£500. (Not available to YMT due to being Arts Council funded) A cohort study trip to Manchester Museums The final meeting will be an evaluation session with all participants speaking about their work As you may have heard from other presentations, Museum Development Yorkshire have brought together a variety of museums and galleries to provide support to each other with H&W initiatives. This has involved training, study visitors, networking and peer to peer support. As an organisation who its Arts Council funded we were unable to access the implementation fund from the MDY. Which was not a major issue as much of what we wanted to do was internal and part of our role. However, we are seeking external funding for future projects. What this group has allowed us to do is be positive of what we can do within our roles to increase H&W with users and staff. It doesn’t have to be a big project involving lots of different users with a variety of needs but, small interventions make big differences.

Stage one – Assessing wellbeing It has increased my confidence with speaking to numbers of people helped to settle into a new town I think I am more confident as a result Regular exercise!!!! and meeting new people Volunteers survey Out of 161 volunteers surveyed we had 73 respondents from across our visitor facing and back of house volunteers. Alongside questions of their experience with YMT volunteer programme we asked a question on H&W. ‘What impact would you say your volunteering has had on your general wellbeing?’ We were astounded by some of the comments from volunteers on how much it has a positive impact on their lives. From building confidence to being more active and finding new friends to using their interests in a positive way to help others. Many of them actually made us cry a little with the impact with had had on their lives. We have always known that volunteering has these outcomes but with these personal accounts we have wanted to sustain and increase these results. I’m not dead yet

YMT’s 5 ways to Wellbeing Thought provoking Helping others Learning something new Meeting people Get Active! The five ways to wellbeing are a fantastic way to understand how we can increase wellbeing in ourselves. connect. be active. take notice. keep learning. give. For individuals these terms are very useful but as an organisation I think they need to be a little bit more specific and unique to the culture of the institution. So we came up with our own five ways which by using SMART Get Active Thought provoking Helping others Learning something new Meeting people We will use these terms in a variety of ways. Firstly, we have used them to reassess our volunteering advertisement by changing the language to suit them. We will also use these are a bases for the next Volunteers Survey. Following on this I am hoping to get this adopted by all departments so we can think about wellbeing with all projects. We are currently in the process of changing our events page so you can search using these terms for events.

Some examples of our advertisement

Programme of events 2017 Date Activity Location Time Thursday 26th January Mindfulness Taster Session With Mark From York Mind Castle, Kirk Room 5:15pm Thursday 23rd February Making Sock Toys With Sarah 12-1 And 1-2 Thursday 30th March Making Chocolate Truffles With Laura For Easter Castle, Kitchens Thursday 27th April Yoga – With Philip Thursday 25th May Still Life Drawing With Rob W Art Gallery, Studio 12-1, 1-2 Thursday 29th June Film Night Yorkshire Museum, TA Hall Thursday 27th July Picasso Pictures – Making Collages With Fiona G YAG – Meet Coca1 12-1,1-2 Thursday 31st August Thursday 28th September Edible Wood Walk Gardens – Meet Back Of YAG 12:30 And 1:30 Thursday 26th October Introduction To Mindful Art Tours With Fiona G YAG, Burton Gallery Thursday 30th November Homemade Christmas Decorations With M 5:15 We sent out requests to staff and volunteers to see if people would like to host an activity. We were surprised how many people offered their time and resources and Fi has wonderfully organised this in to a series of events which people can sign up to. This is hopefully only going to expand and have a wider variety of activities.

Ongoing project ‘Grow’ Creating a physic garden Working with groups who will benefit from the activity Commissioning New Health and Wellbeing coordinator Assessing how we can improve wellbeing in partnership with the NHS and local government Events Wider diversity of events both internal and external Assessing staff H&W

York Museums Trust Fiona Green and Philip Newton