Access to social farms for people with dementia living at home in England: A mixed methods analysis using Levesque’s conceptual framework

While much of the care literature has focused on the benefits of social farms for people living with dementia, less research has examined the accessibility of this form of support. Conducted in England between 2023 and 2024, this study examined access to social farms by people living with dementia using Levesque’s conceptual framework of access as a navigational guide. We surveyed 32 social farm managers, held four online focus groups—two with care professionals and two with social farm staff—and conducted 14 single or dyad interviews with people living with dementia and either their family carer or a social farm volunteer. The sample included six nonfarm users unaware of farm-based services, all of whom were people living with dementia originally from India, Bangladesh, or Pakistan but now living in England. The inclusion of multiple perspectives provided novel insights about accessibility and the cultural meaning of animals, which has not been reported in farm-based studies before. Overall, we found a wide variation in access to social farms by people living with dementia in England. People who access a social farm are overwhelmingly White British with the means to travel independently to a social farm (i.e., access to a car and/or a carer who can drive). The study shows how Levesque’s conceptual framework is a helpful navigational tool for researching access to social care. However, to make the framework more compatible for research on access to social care services, and in particular, forms of ‘green care’, we recommend that researchers incorporate more detailed consideration of intersectionality and access to specific facilities and activities within a service, beyond access to the service itself.