afternoon talks @ 1500

Seeing your Potential as an Emerging Museum Professional

We will be having a panel discussion with three emerging museum professionals about how the Museums and Culture Sector promotes inclusion and wellbeing practices for their emerging workforce. We will cover the Scottish and English perspectives. We will include some personal suggestions for methods that will affect positive change and benefit the workforce and how we can be inclusive in these practices. We will also highlight some barriers we have faced regarding being inclusive as EMPs and how that’s affected our wellbeing. We will conclude by opening the discussion to the floor to discuss and give their lived experiences and highlight best practice and give suggestions. One main element of our discussion will be the benefits for an EMP network here in Scotland, as there currently isn’t one. This will culminate with an open invitation to a social event run by the Scottish EMP network after the SMF conference.          

The theme of the conference is ‘Seeing the bigger picture’ and this is about evaluating our sector as a whole and how it can be more accommodating of those who are often undervalued and underestimated

Speakers Bio

Shahnila (Chairing the Panel)  

I am currently an Art Historian working in a frontline museum. I am also Museum Association’s Scotland Representative and Museum Association 2022 Emerging Museum Professional. I have an undergraduate degree in Health and Social Welfare and have been researching best practices in museums for staff health and wellbeing post covid. 

Speaker:  

Matt -  I am a museums and heritage professional from the East Midlands but currently based in Manchester. I was previously both a Midlands representative for the Museums Association and a founder of the West Midlands Emerging Museum Professionals Network (WMEMP). In 2022 I founded the UK EMP network (UKEMPN). 

Speaker:  

Niamh - I am a recent graduate of the University of St Andrews in the Museum and Gallery Studies MLitt who has faced the challenges of breaking into the sector at 22. I am now working at the Black Watch Castle and Museum as their Museum and Collections Assistant but have been the social media officer for the SMF for over a year. I believe that the sector needs to open itself up to EMP’s and allow them more opportunities to push for wellbeing and inclusion, despite them often only being in entry level museum positions or undergoing a career sector change.