MUSEUM ACCREDITATION GUIDANCE
There are many benefits to museums and heritage sites gaining Accreditation. Although it’s a lengthy process, it’s extremely rewarding and reassuring to know that your organisation is on the right track and meeting nationally agreed standards, as prescribed by Arts Council England.
I have a proven track record in gaining full Accreditation for a number of different sized museums. I can provide tailored advice and support on all aspects of the Museum Accreditation process, including Forward Planning, Emergency Planning, Spectrum 5 advice, Collections Development and Care and Conservation Plans and policies.
Helen has been supporting us through our Accreditation process. We have been through a major redevelopment which has merged two cultural venues in Bedford and the various policies, plans and procedures required for Accreditation were out of date and needed completely revamping.
Helen clearly has a thorough understanding (and enjoyment!) of the whole Accreditation process. She was able to confidently work through the separate policies and plans from the organisations, liaising with the museum team and creating a more succinct set of templates and guidance with which the team could understand, adopt and populate to produce their Accreditation documents. The timeline for the work was pretty short, but Helen delivered on time and followed up afterwards to ensure everything was in order.
I would have no hesitation in recommending her services and working with her in the future.
UH Arts worked with Helen over a three year period to support our submission for Museum Accreditation, from the early preparations to full submission in December 2019. We would not have achieved t his huge and daunting task without her!
We are a small and overstretched team and crucially Helen did not just advise us and set us tasks, instead she was hands-on and shared the ‘doing’ with us. We did not come away from meetings with an overwhelming task list, rather shared out the drafting documents, desk research and contacting relevant people. Helen also helped us set the timeline for discussing and drafting the required documents, and thus gave the process momentum and structure. She demystified areas of the process on several occasions when we got stuck and was always at the end of the phone when we have a quick query. Helen was quick to familiarise herself with the new requirements that were introduced in Spring 2019 so that we were able to update the work done to date in line with the new criteria.
Helen has an excellent reputation and she gave us credibility in our conversations with Arts Council England and Hertfordshire Association of Museums.
Helen is a delight to work with. She is calm and methodical, with excellent attention to detail (which we certainly needed!). She has a lovely warm nature and way about her, with a great sense of humour when we needed it along the way. We miss Helen’s involvement with the team and the Art Collection.