The Eden Alternative

The Eden Alternative is a revolutionary way of looking at the lives of older people and how to care for them.  It turns on its head the well-meaning but flawed philosophy that older people can no longer contribute to their own lives or make any of their own decisions.

Instead, we believe that older people, even those experiencing memory loss, can still exercise positive influence over their own lives.  Eden says that older people should not only control their personal care but also the communities in which they live.  We understand sometimes our residents may need some support with those decisions, but supporting does not mean taking away.

The key principles

We believe that, just like every other stage of our lives, we continue to grow in our later years.  Every one of our homes focuses on making this growth as real and positive as possible.  Our residents don’t just tell us how they like to be individually cared for.  They also help write our menus, interview new staff, make interior design decisions during renovations.  In fact, if there are key decision taking place in our homes we ensure that our residents are fully involved.

The Eden Alternative has transformed traditional care home approaches to help us build communities where life is worth living. We create communities where older people can thrive and be happy! It achieves this by focusing on eliminating the three plagues of old age: loneliness, helplessness and boredom.

Children and animals

At its heart, the Eden Alternative, ensures the residents in our care homes retain contact with plants, animals and children.  Visiting farms, zoos, “pat dogs”, family pets all visit our homes and meet our residents on a regular basis.  We encourage visiting children; whether they are family members of staff or loved ones of our residents.  Our homes all have close links with the communities including local schools, who often visit regularly.  This inter-generational link works for everybody; with residents helping children learn to read and the children helping residents learn to smile again.

In short, children visiting care homes just makes life better! 

The residents at our care homes are encouraged to support our gardening team. Whether that is with actual work or just well-intentioned advice from the comfort of a garden chair.

To find out more about the Eden Alternative and how it has changed the lives of our residents read our Eden Alternative Blog.  Alternatively, search for your closest Greensleeves Care Home. Call them and speak to the Manager who will explain more about the Eden Alternative principals.

Greensleeves Care is a charity we do not worry about making a profit but we do worry about making a difference.  So you can rely on us to do our best to help.