Eden Alternative

General information

THE EDEN ALTERNATIVE
BEYOND PERSON CENTRED CARE
As a comprehensive culture change model, the Eden Alternative focuses on creating person-centred communities that thrive on close and continuing relationships, meaningful interactions, opportunities to give as well as receive, and a rich and diverse daily life. Person-centred communities are places where treatment is the servant of genuine human caring, residents are the daily decision-makers and where wise leaders grow other leaders.
Thee Eden Alternative recognises that promoting person-directed care means offering a philosophy based on a set of guiding principles. Principle-based approaches offer both a shared language and direction, while providing the flexibility to respond to unique needs and circumstances. When it comes to person-directed care, step-wise approaches simply don’t deliver as they do not take into consideration the uniqueness of every individual.
The task-orientation of much of long term care has created a culture that is characterized by pessimism and cynicism. By moving away from top-down bureaucratic approaches to management and moving decision-making closer to the residents, Edenising organizations are creating a vibrant, empowered existence for the people they serve and the people who work closely with them.
The Eden Alternative UK & Ireland has been operating since 2005 and has 500 Eden Associates working in 70+ residential and nursing homes throughout the region. It has close links with Eden Alternative branches in Scandinavia, Northern Europe and South Africa.