Museums learning and wellbeing

In recent years there has been a considerable increase in programmes targeting the health and wellbeing of museum audiences, through outreach or public engagement programmes. Museum learning however is an area of museum practice that has tended not to be explicitly considered in terms of health and wellbeing outcomes. Yet learning is often highlighted in education research as an important aspect of wellbeing. In this paper we present the evidence of the wellbeing impacts of learning programmes and consider how this relates to learning in the museum. Our focus is restricted to adult learning as the health and wellbeing work of museums has focused primarily on this audience. We draw on findings from the National Alliance for Museums, Health & Wellbeing’s recent research report, Museums for Health and Wellbeing (Lackoi, Patsou and Chatterjee, 2016) to present a series of case studies of learning programmes with a health and wellbeing focus. In a final part, recommendations drawn from the Alliance’s report are presented for developing work in this particular area of museum practice.