Children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – the whole family can enjoy a fun a day out with us here at Dudley Canal & Caverns.

As part of this commitment we’re signed up to the Kids in Museums Manifesto, which outlines six areas of family-friendly focus. If you’d like to read more about this national initiative to be awesome for all, you can do so here on their website.

The manifesto is a set of simple guidelines created with children, young people and families. It sets out what they feel makes a great place to visit. Read on to see how we’re making sure the manifesto is at the heart of what we do.

We’re also signed up to the Family Arts Campaign’s Family Arts Standards.

Be Welcoming

Everywhere on site you’ll find spaces to explore, have fun and learn together. Visit our exhibition galleries on both floors and have a go at legging, build a tunnel arch and lots more!

Make it Easy and Comfortable

We’re constantly adding little touches to make your family’s day out the best it can be. You’ll find seating around our site perfect for anyone to take a rest, in our exhibition galleries and on our towpath. When it comes to lunchtime you’re welcome to enjoy your own picnic at our picnic tables beside the canal or near the car park, or if you head to our coffee shop you’ll find a dedicated children’s menu, bottle warming facilities, high chairs, plastic cutlery and crockery and more.

Baby changing facilities are available, with family-friendly toilet seats with a special smaller fold-down seat for young children to use in the toilets beside our activity room. You’ll also find toilets big enough to accommodate a pram on both floors of our building and we’ll help you find a safe space to leave pushchairs whilst you’re on our boat trips.

Remember Families Come in all Shapes and Sizes

As well as offering two different family tickets (for a family of four and a family of five) our events have been designed to offer fun-filled experiences for different age groups. For our youngest visitors we offer weekly Tunnel Tots trips that are aimed at the under 5s with a short tunnel trip that’s accompanied by stories and songs on board. You’ll also learn Makaton signs and get stuck into some colouring in our coffee shop after the trip.

Be Accessible to all

Access for all is at the heart of what we do. We’ve created an access guide to help visitors who might have additional needs enjoy their day. From orientation guides to information on lighting levels around the building, the guide contains a wide range of helpful information.

We’re constantly reviewing and improving what we can offer to ensure everyone can enjoy their visit to us. We know that in our local area family finances can be challenging for some, so we offer some of our experiences at a very low cost, such as our Tunnel Tots boats. If you GiftAid your ticket you can come back again and again, and we’re committed to creating a school holiday programme that allows everyone the opportunity to get involved at no extra cost than your standard entry.

Communicate Well

There’s no point having a fabulous offer if no-one hears about it, so we work hard to spread the word about who we are and what we do. Through the year you’ll find us out and about at local park play days, in shopping centres and boating festivals.

You’ll also find us on Facebook and Instagram sharing loads of fresh, unique content including live videos and exclusive behind-the-scenes moments. We also work with local children’s centres and schools to get the message out about our events and activities.

Work Together

We believe that the best content is developed working with our visitors, which is why we’re constantly evaluating and improving everything we do. When you visit you’ll find comment cards, sheets, activities and more asking for your feedback and our staff are always asking visitors for their thoughts on their visit. These get fed back into our design process to improve what we do for our visitors.

Evening events, our site maps and our cafe’s plastic crockery are all examples of new ideas we’ve rolled out in response to visitor feedback! We also like to offer our visitors the chance to be a part of our programming wherever possible.