Sensory Objects Enterprise - Co-Development and Start Up project

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We aim to enhance the value and benefits of the award-winning AHRC-funded 'Sensory Objects' project. This enriched the experience of people with learning disabilities within museums and heritage sites through the development of sensory interactive objects.Resulting from the Sensory Objects project we have the opportunity to work in partnership with the inclusive employment agency Jobs Enterprise and Training JET), to co-develop employment for people with learning disabilities as part of a training and sensory dialogue service that can help museums and heritage sites to realise more accessible and meaningful experiences for their visitors with learning disabilities.We aim to create long-term sustainable employment for people with learning disabilities in museums and heritage and to help that sector achieve wider social and cultural inclusion by incorporating the understanding and working methods developed during the Sensory Objects Project. Our inclusive teams will use creative sensory approaches and multimedia to work with museum professionals. Our experience from the Sensory Object Project was that people with learning disabilities told us they felt respected and were able to communicate their ideas and museum professionals e.g. Kate Arnold-Forster Director of the Museum of English Rural Life during the Sensory Objects Seminar MERL 25.02.15 told us they were challenged to rethink their approaches to sensory engagement because of the Sensory Objects approach. We will create a social business Sensory Objects Enterprise (SOE) that will provide an innovative set of services that can be provided to Museums and Heritage sites. The SOE will offer alternative approaches for dialogue with museum professionals, create alternative sensory interpretation of museum collections and encouraged greater awareness of the valuable contribution people with learning disabilities bring to the museum and heritage sector. We will establish a viable and self-sustaining business vehicle to deliver this service and refine these into three distinct product offers: 1. Provision of Interactive Workshops direct to museum staff and/or co-delivered with staff to the local learning disability community. 2. Provision of Sensory Focus Groups that work in participatory and creative ways to engage disabled people to meaningfully review collections and curatorial approaches with museum staff and contractors.3. Provision of Sensory Dialogues services to assist communication in the design and development of interactive exhibits. This model of product strand will be rehearsed through engagement of the team in partnership with a professional museum interactive production company These will be co-produced and trialled in three pilot implementations with representative cultural organisations, The Ragged School London, MERL and The British Museum.These will then be disseminated as publicity at the heart of a viable commercial package that will be the core outcome of the Follow-on Funding phase. This will constitute a service offer for the museum and heritage sector that we can take to market with confidence.