Access Smithsonian
Morning at the Museum
A free sensory-friendly program for families of children with disabilities.
Access Smithsonian strives to provide consistent, effortless access to the Institution's programs, collections, and facilities.
Visitor resources include:
- Accessibility information for museum and zoo visitors and pre-visit video stories.
- Resources for visitors with cognitive and sensory processing disabilities.
Responsibilities of Access Smithsonian include:
- Advising on and implementing policy, practices, and procedures related to access for people with disabilities.
- Reviewing facility and exhibition designs.
- Providing technical assistance.
- Conducting outreach to the disability community and other cultural arts organizations.
- Providing staff education on disability topics.
- Working with Smithsonian museums and offices to provide direct visitor services, including sign language interpretation, real time captioning, and alternate formats of publications.
Our Programs include:
Morning at the Museum
On select dates, Morning at the Museum offers early admission to a Smithsonian museum or the zoo. Families are also welcome to explore a museum or zoo exhibit on their own schedule. Guided by a Community Advisory Committee, the Smithsonian has developed a series of pre-visit materials designed to help children on the spectrum and their families enjoy a visit to the Smithsonian's museums.
Project Search
Project SEARCH Smithsonian was initiated in 2013 to create unpaid internship opportunities to help young adults who have developmental disabilities gain knowledge and skills that can lead to paid employment. This ten- month school-to-work transition program targets job seekers who benefit from total immersion in a business setting. The Project SEARCH model was founded in 1996 at the Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center and has been replicated more than 250 times through the U.S. and internationally. Project SEARCH interns participate in daily classroom instruction and gain hands-on work experiences by rotating among three 10-week unique unpaid internships. Project SEARCH interns can be found working throughout the Smithsonian Institution performing tasks that are valuable to their coworkers and Smithsonian visitors.
