Living through Landscapes is a pioneering project to support people with dementia by transforming outdoor spaces at 30 care homes across the UK. It is a partnership between Learning through Landscapes, The Society for Horticultural Therapy known as Thrive, Age UK, Groundwork and University of Kent. It was made possible thanks to a £1.3 million grant from the Big Lottery Fund.
According to the Alzheimers Society there are around 800,000 people in the UK with dementia and one third of them live in a care home. One in three people over 65 will develop dementia, and two-thirds of people with dementia are women. 80 per cent of people living in care homes have a form of dementia or severe memory problems. The number of people with dementia is likely to increase year on year in line with increasing life expectancy and population ageing.
Despite the fact that most dementia care settings have an outside space, our initial consultations suggest they are used rarely if at all, that service providers feel they are unsafe, or they lack confidence and resources to encourage better use of their space.
The Living through Landscapes project aims to support settings to improve the use of their outside space through a dementia friendly consultation and engagement process, landscape changes, and training and support to care settings. Thirty settings will be directly funded throughout the three years of the project, but the resources developed including podcast or online versions of training and the garden designs will be available to any other setting who would like to take steps to improve the use of their own outside space.
Please note that we require an application form for each individual care setting - if you are part of a group of care homes you will need to complete a form for each address that you would like to apply for.
This short form is stage one of a two stage application, successful applicants will be advised of the next steps, applications will be reviewed regularly and closed once all spaces have been filled. If you have any questions, please get in touch on dementiagarden@ltl.org.uk or 01962 845131.
