engage in diversity
engage is committed to promoting wider access and opportunities within the gallery education sector
through increasing the diversity of staff, volunteers and audiences.
In 2005 engage developed a diversity definition and diversity policies in consultation with engage's
Board of Trustees, advisory Council and a Diversity Working Group as follows:
engage defines diversity broadly to include cultural diversity, disability, age, socio-economic factors,
gender and sexual orientation. engage recognises that cultural diversity is largely self defined and may
include ethnicity, nationality and religion.
Click here for the Diversity resources area.
Policy Statements:
engage actively seeks to embrace diversity in all aspects of its staffing, governance, operations and
programmes and to make reasonable adjustments to encourage greater diversity and wider access.
engage strives to promote greater diversity amongst the membership and the wider sector through awareness raising,
advice and guidance, training and professional development and advocacy.
engage encourages its membership to define and embed diversity within their own practice and to promote throughout
their organisations and the wider sector.
Through its diversity policy and action plan engage aims to:
- support diversity within all aspects of its activities
- support diversity within the gallery education/learning profession
Embedding diversity across our work
engage has been involved in number of initiatives looking at diversity since 2003. Since this time a number of
improvements have been made ensuring that engage's policies, programmes and practice embrace diversity.
engage's diversity action plan draws on the diversity strategy and action plan agreed by engage's Board of Trustees in November 2005.
Actions taken by engage include:
- New Board members have been appointed with expertise around diversity issues
- Specific programmes have taken place which embrace diversity:
- Extend (2010-11), leadership training for education and learning staff from across the arts
- Current programme in Wales (2009-11), supporting galleries to work with older people
- Everyone programme (2010-11), supporting access and disability equality in galleries and the visual arts in Scotland
- Visual Roots programme (2008-10), accredited work placements in visual arts venues for vulnerable and hard to reach young people
- Explore programme (2007-9), supporting galleries in Wales and England to work with disabled and deaf adults and the accompanying handbook
- engage conference on gallery education, in an international and culturally diverse context (2007)
- engage journals on family and intergenerational learning,
galleries working with disabled and deaf people (2009)
and with culturally diverse audiences (2006)
- Improvement of our marketing and print material to make it more accessible, including the redesign of our
journal and other publications. The engage website was redesigned in 2007 and is constantly being updated
and modified to improve access.
engage's diversity work prior to 2005 is as follows:
Diversity and Citizenship conference Tate Modern (May 2003, 162 participants)
Diversity and Citizenship seminars across England (May 2003, 130 participants)
Whose Diversity conference, Liverpool (2003, 194 participants)
Making Connections Diversity in Projects seminars (75 participants) and Diverse Audiences (76 participants)
engage took part in the Creative Renewal Programme: this involved research into the make-up of the sector, diversity
schemes in the museums and galleries sector and research into attitudes amongst school and university students to
careers in galleries. Also careers talks for art students and gallery placements for school pupils were run aimed at
broadening the diversity of potential incomers to the sector. Click here for more details.
Development of an online careers resource aimed at young people.
1 day national conference 'Embedding Diversity in Galleries' (98 participants) which includes 3 written reports and
information on the engage website.
Diversity Strategy, Diversity Working Group and Diversity Action Plan.