Museums for Life: Freelance Creative Practitioner

Salary range: £5,500 Fee Closing date: 20 January 2025 Download the job pack

Programme overview

We are tendering for a Freelance Creative Practitioner to co-develop, deliver and evaluate two 8-week creative programmes to support the health and wellbeing of older adults (aged 65+). The programmes will be delivered at the Fitzwilliam Museum, in collaboration with colleagues from the Museum.

Museums for Life is a new approach which embeds inclusive practice and creative health principles into the development, delivery and evaluation of health and wellbeing research and practice in the Museum. The approach has been informed by an evaluative project Reimagining, which explored how creative programmes can help to create a healthier, more inclusive museum environment; and Take a Walk in My Shoes, a research project which considered experiences of being in the Museum and how these could inform and / or support health and wellbeing in the Museum.

Museums for Life is informed by:

• Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care System’s priority to “create an environment to give people the opportunity to be as health as they can be”
• Cambridge Public Health’s research priority of ‘life-course and ageing’
• Creative Health Quality Principles which support creative health programmes to be person-centred, equitable, safe, creative, collaborative, realistic, reflective, and sustainable

Museums for Life aims to foster inclusive wellbeing practices, explore the role of museum-based creative initiatives in improving health and wellbeing outcomes, and to establish sustainable practice that integrate creative health principles into museum programmes, ensuring equitable access and long-term benefits. Through the development of these programmes, we hope to consider questions such as:

• How can museums create environments that actively support health and wellbeing for diverse communities, including ageing populations?
• What changes or benefits do creative health programmes have on physical, emotional, and social wellbeing within museum spaces?
• In what ways can the Museum collaborate with local organisations to maximise the effectiveness of Museums for Life programmes?

Your role will be to co-develop, facilitate and evaluate two Museums for Life programmes at the Fitzwilliam Museum. The programmes will draw inspiration from the Museum’s collection and empower participants to creatively connect with the artefacts in ways which resonate with and enrich their lives, supporting positive health and wellbeing. You will work responsively, being flexible to the needs and interests of the groups.

This role is for someone who has experience facilitating creative engagement activities with older adults, with an emphasis on promoting the positive health and wellbeing of participants. We are open to receiving applications from creative practitioners using innovative approaches and art forms who can take inspiration from the Museum’s collection to engage older adults through exciting and engaging creative activities.

The programmes will involve older adults who may be experiencing physical and / or mental health conditions and or other impairments. Older adults will be recruited to the programmes by signposting through local community organisations and networks (such as How are you (HAY) Cambridgeshire & Peterborough?; Care Network Cambridgeshire; Cambridge Older People’s Enterprise (COPE) and Older People’s Network), and open recruitment. Programme publicity, participation recruitment and booking will be facilitated by the Museum and is not included in this brief.

A fee of £5,500 is available for this work, plus a budget of £500 for materials. Please note that we are not able to offer additional payment to cover travel/subsistence costs. Fee is inclusive of planning, delivery and evaluation.

About Us

The Fitzwilliam Museum is the principal museum of the University of Cambridge and the largest cultural venue in the region, welcoming around 450,000 visitors a year. We care for works of art and material culture principally from Europe, North Africa and Asia that connect people across cultures and time. Founded in 1816 ‘for the increase of learning’, the Fitzwilliam has long been both a great public cultural asset and an extraordinary scholarly resource – local, regional, national and global.

Our vision: Opening up the past to transform our futures.

Our mission: We use art, objects, spaces and experiences to inspire reflection, connection and creativity.

Tender specification

 We are looking for someone who brings the following:

• Proven experience designing and delivering creative programmes for older adults and / or diverse audiences.
• Strong understanding of inclusivity, creative health principles, and wellbeing-focused practices.
• Excellent facilitation and communication skills, with the ability to adapt to participants’ needs.
• Experience collaborating with multidisciplinary teams and community stakeholders.
• Knowledge or interest in integrating museum collections into creative programming is an advantage.

Activities & Outputs

• Contribution to planning discussions with Fitzwilliam programme staff, in line with the project’s principles for inclusive practice
• Facilitate 2 x 8-week creative programmes (see delivery dates below)
• Active participation in monitoring and evaluation throughout the project, in line with the project’s evaluation framework

Delivery Requirements

You must be available to work at the Fitzwilliam Museum on the following dates and times to deliver the two 8-week programmes:

• Nature, home and heritage (working title)

Wednesdays (10:30 – 12:30) - 5^th March to 23^rd April 2025

• Cultivating health through nature (working title)

Tuesdays (14:30 – 16:30) - 13^th May to 8^th July 2025

And to meet either in-person or online for meetings as described below (times to be agreed):

• Wednesday 5^th February – initial planning session
• Tuesday 25^th or Wednesday 26^th February – check in for programme details
• Tuesday 6th or Wednesday 7^th May – mid-programme reflections
• Tuesday 15^th or Wednesday 16^th July – final evaluation and reflections

Tender Submission Process

Please send the following:

• Covering letter of up to 500 words or a two-minute video explaining your interest in this work & describing how you would deliver against this brief
• A portfolio of one side of A4 showing examples of relevant past work
• Anticipated budget breakdown – including day rate, and materials

You will be required to:

• hold an Enhanced DBS certificate for working with vulnerable adults.
• be self-employed and responsible for paying your own tax and National Insurance contributions.

We are committed to anti-discriminatory practices and are keen to create opportunities for a wide range of creative practitioners. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you. If you require any adjustments to the tender process, or participation in the project, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.

The deadline for tenders is 5pm on Monday 20^th January 2025. Shortlisted creative practitioners will be invited to an informal interview on the afternoon of Wednesday 29th January.

 For further information and to submit your tender please contact:

Emily Bradfield, Practitioner Research Associate: Collections & Wellbeing (Older Adults) at the Fitzwilliam Museum erbradfield@cam.ac.uk.

If you are unavailable on any of the dates / times listed above, please make this clear in your application.