ISBN No. 9780993573712

This award winning care home garden design handbook supports garden designers, and those who support care settings, to create well-used and well-loved care home garden designs. Based on our extensive research project into what makes care home gardens more actively used. In it we share a new way of working with care settings called ‘Relationship-Centred Design’. This approach ensures that design support matches the current care culture of the setting to reduce the risk of the design investment leading to an under-used or abandoned garden once the novelty of a new space has worn off.

Real-life stories illuminate this thought provoking book and brings to life how to ensure gardens are meaningfully developed and used, and with particular reference to people living with dementia.

It is also worth stating what this Handbook is not; it is not a guide to what the gradient of a ramp should be nor other installation specifics; many other books cover these topics effectively.

It does however provide a detailed ‘Care Culture Banding tool’ to assess the care culture at a setting and the suggested support to apply to match this appropriately. This is most helpful at the beginning of any relationship between garden designers and care home clients, ensuring an appropriate initial brief and the implementation of support delivered alongside any changes needed to care practices too.

A range of wider insights are also explored that may need to be considered if even the best intended garden is to avoid inadvertently hindering future engagement by care settings. This includes; a range of hidden dangers, avoiding gimmicks and some quick wins.

This product is widely available including via: The Great British Bookshop, as print on demand, and to order through most retailers including Waterstones despatched through Gardners.

Further information is available for Libraries/ trade wishing to purchase directly, please get in touch

The post Why don’t we go into the garden? – A Designer Handbook for Creating Actively Used Care Setting Gardens appeared first on Step Change Design Ltd.

This award winning poster is ideal for noticeboards with its eye-catching design and colourful layout drawing the reader to the bite-size messages and to inspire fresh thinking on how to enjoy the garden more with residents.

Quantity discounts available, please get in touch for more information.

This poster is included free as part of the Care Culture Map and Handbook package.

The post Why don’t we go into the garden? – Infographic Poster appeared first on Step Change Design Ltd.

The award winning Care Culture Map and Handbook shares the key findings from our evidence based research into what makes care home gardens more actively used. This package supports care homes, and the outdoor specialists who support them, to identify and address the factors that prevent resident’s regularly and meaningfully engaging with the care home gardens.

The visually engaging Care Culture Map makes the often complex process of culture change visually accessible and understandable by all staff within care settings allowing progress to be clearly seen, understood and readily communicated. This diagnostic tool enables care settings to locate where they are along a care culture spectrum in relation to Person-Centred and Relationship-Centred Care. It is deliberately paper based to encourage group discussion as to what is holding back greater use of the existing gardens and to agree a route forward.

The accompanying handbook explores several common themes to overcome, including: Health and Safety, Open door policies, and being weather ready. Where the support of a garden designer is required to make physical changes this helps care homes and garden designers to work effectively together to ensure the garden is actively used beyond any initial novelty period of a new space. We call this approach ‘Relationship-centred Design’.

Working with the Map tool will often identify practices that are mirrored inside the care home too and so the Map tool can sit comfortably alongside other culture change programmes to achieving more advanced care practices.

A copy of our A3 Infographic Poster, “Why Don’t We Go Into The Garden?” is included in this package.

Quantity discounts available, please get in touch for more information.

This product is widely available to order through most retailers including via: My care matters and to order through most retailers including Waterstones, despatched via Gardners.

Further information is available for Libraries/ trade wishing to purchase directly, please get in touch

10/06/26 Important notice - We have had an unprecedented level of sales this last month and have placed an order to reprint stocks as they are now low. Our usual speedy delivery will apply to remaining stocks however, our reprinted stock hit a snag with our Map printer experiencing a problem with their specialist printers (this is a big headache for them as they print one of the UK's most well known Map company Maps!). We should be back to normal stocks and delivery times by the end of this week, 12/6, and you can still place an order if we are showing no stocks and will get your 'Care Culture Map and Handbook' out to you as soon as these are back in stock.

The post Why don’t we go into the garden? – Care Culture Map and Handbook appeared first on Step Change Design Ltd.