ACCESS Family Membership Program

The Community Access Membership Program is an innovative, new model for children’s museum outreach because it merges two primary museum goals: audience diversification and sustained relationship building. Community Access expands CMOM’s capacity to reach underserved families in New York’s shelters and poorer communities, while at the same time establishes a network of committed community partners who join us in our effort to nurture learning and exploration for children. This program will inspire children’s museums to think of their community as a whole instead of as a patchwork of different
sub-groups.

This new model was inspired by the realization that outreach programs alone were not enough to bring the full learning opportunities of CMOM to families living in shelters and temporary housing. What was needed was a program that would bring those families into the museum on their own terms and schedule. To do so, we engaged a broad group of 56 community-based organizations (CBOs)—ranging from affordable housing networks to childcare assistance programs—to garner interest in CMOM and its activities on a neighborhood level. To give these families a lasting place in the Museum community, we forgo the traditional model of special one-time events or free days that target (and effectively isolate) low-income families in favor of regular, sustained membership. Unlimited free access for these families to all of our exhibits, workshops, and programs provides a springboard for a lifetime of learning.

CMOM understands that the learning done at the Museum is most effective if reinforced at home on an ongoing basis. To that end, we have designed our introductory open-house events for new Community Access members to help families develop a practice of learning, creating, and exploring together. Parents and kids participate in craft workshops, attend performances, and visit our interactive exhibitions as an entire family. CBOs have voiced a need for parenting skill-development for adults, and so we have included parenting instruction into the schedule of activities. While children are engaged in hands-on creative projects, we teach parents that they are the best and most constant teachers in their children’s lives. They learn strategies to facilitate their children’s learning and are taught to introduce informal learning to their everyday interactions with their kids. These lessons enable families to take their experiences at the museum back to their homes or to the shelter, and to use their unlimited free access to the museum to get into a practice of family learning on their own individual schedules.

To reinforce the value of creative learning for kids, CBO and shelter directors continue to talk to their clients about the Museum and our educational philosophy. They promote CMOM as a place of growth for the entire family, where parents can build their parenting skills and enhance self-confidence, and where their children can receive and interact with the stimuli that they need in order to thrive. Over time, the Museum provides a steadfast physical and emotional environment that will hopefully serve as the foundation for a lifetime of learning and inquiry.

Open-house events are the key to making CMOM and the Community Access Membership Program inviting and inclusive of all new members. One of the best examples of the way these events embrace families and make them feel comfortable is our annual Halloween Party. The party gives kids, many of whom live in temporary housing where there is no place to trick-or-treat, a safe and educational place to celebrate Halloween like other children. At last year’s party, performer Louie Miranda packed our theater with costumed parents and children, treating them to a raucous bilingual sing-along. The theater reverberated with the energy of excitement, as nearly 300 children and families celebrated Halloween together in an outburst of uninhibited fun. Kids and adults alike played instruments in their own unique styles, belted out familiar Spanish songs, and danced in the aisles. By giving families a safe, educational, and ecstatically fun Halloween, we were able to welcome them to CMOM with open arms.