Meet Our Mens Health Team
Your Professionals
Facilitated by the team at Natural Academy who have over 15 years experience of working with people outdoors and specifically people affected by cancer.
Clive Weston
NatureWell facilitator, Clincal Psychologist and Eco therapist
I have always been keen on being outdoors in nature, walking, cycling, camping and appreciating the sights, sounds and smells of the natural world. I worked as a clinical psychologist in NHS services before my retirement three years ago, since when I have been undertaking training in eco-psychology. I am passionate about the natural world and helping people to make connections with it. I believe that this can be beneficial to us individually and can help us to take better care of each other and the natural world. I am excited about joining a group with other men and helping each other to navigate the many challenges that we face.
Michéal Connors
NatureWell facilitator, Ecopsychologist and psychotherapist
Michéal is an eco-psychologist, mountain leader and holistic health and wellbeing professional. He is a qualified psychotherapist, supervisor and lecturer. He has a specialist interest in nature-based approaches to holistic cancer care and mental health. For over 25 years Michéal has been advocating and developing nature based and holistic approaches to mental and physical health.
Peter Darby-Knight
NatureWell Facilitator and Dramatherapist
Since returning to the west country having lived in London for 25 years, I have become increasingly aware of the value and importance of the natural world to care for our mental health. Spending time in nature has become an integral part of supporting my emotional well-being and I have a deepening appreciation of what the natural world offers me in regard to this. For the past two years I have had the privilege of working with groups of people who are living with and beyond cancer, and seen first-hand the positive effect nature has on people’s health and well-being. I am very much looking forward to working alongside other men who want to deepen their own sense of connection to nature.
Core Tutors
Rhonda Brandrick
Rhonda is co founder of Natural Academy and is a nature-based practitioner, supervisor, author, therapist, teacher and eco depth guide. She brings a wealth of experience and deep curiosity to our human-nature reciprocal relationship with the Earth and our ongoing personal and collective development within this. She has worked with individuals, couples and groups for over 25 years. Rhonda is dedicated to making a difference to human health and the health of the natural world by helping people and the rest of nature recover from trauma and come back into good relation to self, other and deeper nature of all things.
Simon Martin
Simon has a unique blend of people and organisational experience alongside a passion for nature and wellbeing. He’s a senior leader at Triodos Bank UK where he facilitates leadership development and co-worker nature-based wellbeing programmes. He’s completed Natural Academy’s full Vocational Pathway, has trained in counselling and psychotherapy, mediation and yoga (200 hours teacher level) and permaculture design. Simon’s dedicated to continually respond to his calling for deep listening. In doing so he offers safe, open spaces that support holistic health and wellbeing of people, alongside the wider community of life.
people, alongside the wider community of life.
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
Safiya Elgindy
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.
Thea
Thea is a researcher, writer, landscape architect, musician, gardener and nature- connection enthusiast. She is a published author and has worked in academic settings as well as with NGOs and in private practice.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.