Step Change design is an award winning organisation supporting creating active and meaningful care home gardens within person-centred care practices.
Step Change design aims to support creating active and meaningful care home gardens within person-centred care practices. They recognise that creating sensory, well-being and dementia friendly gardens is both rewarding and challenging, with many often subtle aspects hindering active engagement by residents which prevents them from gaining the health benefits of being able to simply step outside.
Step Change Designs founders identified the key influence on ensuring residents can get out more within the organisation’s culture. They share what is required of care teams, and any garden designers working with them, to create care home garden designs that ensure they are used long after the novelty of a new space has work off.
Their ‘Relationship-Centred Design’ approach supports collaboration between Care Homes and their Residents, and where needed with Garden Designers, Landscape Architects and other therapeutic garden specialists. Their support is available through various self-help books and tools in their ‘Why don’t we go into the garden?’ series including a Garden Designer Handbook, Care Culture Map and Handbook and an Infographic Poster plus a range of thought-provoking workshops, presentation events and site specific tailored consultations.
If you would like more information on how we can support you then please get in touch or sign up for our newsletter below.
Upcoming events :
We are back out sharing our work with workshops and presentations scheduled in the coming months to support care settings, garden designers and those who support people living in care settings. You can find us at the following events:
DemFest 2026
Romsey, Hampshire, Dementia Awareness Group’s annual Festival and Dementia information day
- Date: 13 September 2026
- Time: 10am -4pm
- Venue: Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Ampfield, Romsey, SO51 0QA
This event has all the feel of a garden fete, with music, games for the children all alongside both national and local organisations providing advice and support to anyone living with or caring for someone living with dementia. We’ll be there sharing hints and tips on keeping the connection with the garden alive, plus a chance to see our publication if you a local care provider or garden designer working in this area.
For more information see www.romdag.co.uk
Gardens that Care
- Title: Gardens that Care
- Event: FutureScape
- Date: 13-14 October 2026, speaking on 13th
- Time: 11-1145am, theatre tbc
- Venue: Farnborough International Exhibition & Conference Centre
I’ll be speaking at this event focusing on gardens that care. We all know that gardens can nurture people and the planet, and many of us set out to create spaces to bring these benefits into people’s lives. Yet all too often, these potentially beneficial spaces, fall out of use or don’t live up to expectations. Commonly the client may blame the garden while we may blame the organisation for not maintaining it or a lack of knowledge or that staff have no time to use it. Our award-winning study cuts through these and many other myths to help ensure the efforts we go to in creating these valuable spaces results in an actively used garden long after we have left.
Why not join me to hear more, register at https://www.futurescapeevent.com/register-attend
Why don’t we go into the garden? Workshops 2026
We are currently looking to schedule our next care team workshops and courses for garden designers; if you are interested in attending one of these let us know via our contact form and where you are located as this may help us decide our final locations.
For more details of outcomes of these events visit our courses page. We are also able to run these in house for care organisations, landscape design practices or academic settings.
Debbie Carroll MBALI
