So many gardens: Press Release [ now ]

It had to happen. Twice over.

The irony that just as so many homes with older people living in them have gardens that are in a state of neglect, so too do many nursing and care homes.

Of course this is a sign in those domestics homes of reduced abilities.

In the residential care and nursing homes, garden neglect is reassuring.

A $ure sign that the love and spending is on the blooms inside?

The need for a hybrid propagator

In the Northern hemisphere now is the time to be out there planting seeds. Here in the NW of England Spring is just around the corner (the first turn of the year). If you have a greenhouse you can start early. If you have a propagator you can start even sooner and possibly experiment with more exotic flora.

Plants are a known quantity in terms of their needs: temperature, soil, sun, wind, frost, position. ... You just need to add the green fingers to make it work: plus the weather!


It really is magic sowing the sweet peas and seeing the display and smelling the scent in summer.

When it comes to health and social care though we need a special propagator: a true hybrid. Just consider the needs:

physical emotional assessment outcomes quality reflection safety personal social history finance consent intervention person-centered carer demographics information education self-care value for money personalisation dignity respect care collaboration engagement values involvement risk ...

Image source: A Feynman Propagator - Wikipedia

Well-being: a great place to be!

Working in mental health you certainly don't take mood, mental state and that nebulous notion of well-being for granted.

Depression is a terrible thing and given the thin red line that we all walk in terms of mental health, it's a place no one wants to venture.

There's a lot of emphasis being placed on well-being (happiness!) at present. The usual retinue of number of this and that measures count for little if at the end of the day well-being or the individual's happiness is not improved, or perhaps more accurately 'satisfied'.

Watching Glastonbury it's all about music and well-being amid lots of mud.

Well-being is taken for granted like so many things in life. Take it away and it's noticed - very quickly.

They say that the best lessons are those we learn for ourselves. Being lost and finding your way is another pivotal lesson. At key times and places this journey can be a rite of passage no less.

In order for health promotion to deliver, people need to understand well-being, that is the many ingredients that contribute to that feeling, that sense, that inner magic that lights us up and those around us...

Hodges' model can help people with that journey, especially at a time when a fellow traveller may be needed.

Health and social care services are so often about signposting these days.

Hodges' model can help people signpost for themselves...

Photo: BBC