Thea Gordon Rawling

Thea Gordon-Rawlings: Thea is a researcher, writer, landscape architect, musician, gardener and natureconnection enthusiast. She is a published author and has worked in academic settings as well as with NGOs and in private practice. She has specialised in exploring the places at which the beyond-human meets the human-made, as well as the roles the natural world can play in supporting healing and how this healing process can cultivate a more reciprocal way of relating to the non-human.

One of Thea’s latest research projects sought to further the relationship between the fields of landscape theory and ecopsychology, bridging the gap through the lenses of personal agency and “affordances”. She explored the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on people’s relationships with gardens and her research was published in the journal Emotion, Space and Society. While working as a consultant, Thea specialised in the research and writing of Landscape and Visual Impact Assessments, Land Use Management Plans and funding applications. She has also researched and scripted a successful global policy-oriented radio programme commissioned by BBC World Service. She has a permaculture design certificate, has completed RHS horticultural training and is soon to be practicing as a TRE (tension and trauma release exercises) provider.

Dr Catriona Mellor

Leading on CAMHS and NatureWell Catriona is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who has been working in the NHS adolescent inpatient environment until recently. She has an interest in the mental health impacts of the eco-crisis on children and young people as well as what nature-based practices and insights can add to mental health care. She is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Planetary Health and Sustainability Committee. She is co-author on the recent Lancet Planetary Health paper, ‘A global survey of climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change’. Her specialist interest is in evidencing interventions that can bring nature into the heart of CAMHS and she leads the NatureWell in CAMHS project.

Simone Leyland MA

Leading on Ecotherapy Simone is a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and eco therapist working as a consultant in specialist education settings and in private practice. During her career she has worked in higher education as a lecturer and clinical supervisor training psychotherapists, she has worked within the NHS as a group therapist and has published research in her fields of study.

Her clinical work as a psychotherapist is tending to the suffering of people who feel part of a story of fragmentation and lostness. Her specialist interest is focussing on ecotherapeutic interventions and the NSET model.

Safiya El Cindy

Safiya is an Ecotherapist and Mental Health Practitioner working with young people in Manchester. She is particularly interested in the ways we can rekindle our sense of belonging as part of nature. Whether that is through helping others connect to nature in the city, holding space for diverse groups, or more personally, remembering what it means to be human and our forgotten deeper connection to each other and the web of life. Currently, she works at a young people’s mental health charity, running a group for young adults to explore their relationship with nature and has set up a year long course across the three realms of practice. Her focus is To resource people and improve their mental health, whilst building healthy community and connection with others and the wider world.