Debbie Carroll (MBALI)

I am a garden designer with 20+ years experience and am passionate about nature, wildlife but mostly about ensuring gardens are well used and well loved, whether in a domestic or care setting. My experience designing for care settings for residents living with dementia prompted the question of why gardens were not more actively used even when designed to the latest guidance.  With a fellow designer Mark Rendell we undertaken a self-funded study to understand what was hindering engagement. We identified a direct link between those settings delivering more advanced care practices, truly person-centred and beyond, that were more naturally engaging with the outside.

This led to us writing our ‘Why don’t we go into the garden?’ series of books and tools.

I support care settings on a culture change journey, as seen through the eyes of garden engagement using our tools, our ‘Fresh eyes on the garden’ consultations, and workshops. I also do undertake some care home design projects while my main aim is to help settings understand they they are not using the garden they already have. I also support fellow designers to apply the learning from our research and deliver their design support in line with our 'Relationship-Centred Design' approach.

Step Change Design was formed to share the findings of our research and we share lots of helpful free information on our website as well as our paid publications and services. Feel free to take a look and share if this is helpful to your own work or get in touch if you’d like to know more.

www.stepchange-design.co.uk