rhiannon

rhiannon is a qualified forest school practitioner and has training in therapeutic skills for outdoor leaders, holistic education, child development from birth upwards, permaculture, bushcraft & nature connection. her background is in fine art and arts education. 

rhiannon feels strongly about having a connection with the natural world and learning ways to live in right-relationship with it. she is continually gaining understanding and experience of the wonders of the animal and plant kingdoms that support all of life and are vital for how our brains develop, our health and wellbeing through to adulthood as well as for the greater regeneration and stewardship of the earth.

rhiannon is one of the co-founders of ‘kinship in nature’.

misty

misty started volunteering originally with a group of local mama’s who wanted to take advantage of epping forest on their doorsteps. having been schooled in germany, holland and norway, it felt ludicrous that nothing was being offered locally in the way of ‘forest school’. with ties to ‘city of london’ due to starting a local monthly litter pick, her new chapter started. she is now the co-founder of k.i.n. and has bought her entrepreneurial background to drive the project forward. she is studying to become a level three facilitator so that in a few years time when her little people fly the nest she will spend more time in the forest.

as a new mother, the early days of helping to set up sessions and just spending time in nature, really revealed it’s holistic side and it is this side which has grown her passion to ensure the project continues to develop so that the benefits can be bought to her local community.

karen

karen grew up in malaysia rooted in the natural world where she played in soil, grew food as a community and communed with animals and plants during her explorations in jungles, beaches, hills, parks and waterfalls. she experienced her teachers taking students outside for classes and camping as the only girl scout in a boy scouts group which her father led.

a former teacher and lead in both mainstream and sen settings, karen always felt a missing link - time spent outdoors where she ensured that nature based activities were always on offer. this led karen and her partner to choose outdoor explorations as the basis to home educate their young children. it became clear to karen that children needed to be heard, trusted and allowed to explore risky play outdoors. the forest school model naturally aligned with karen which led her to begin her level 3 forest school leader training in autumn 2023. she is currently completing this alongside working at k.i.n. 

karen is a firm advocate of empowering each other so we can truly connect to experience the diversity that exists between humans and other living beings on our planet. she believes in the right to wander in wonder. karen is enjoying the continuous learning that life offers so that she can continue to share her imagination and deepen her connection to people and the natural world.

swift

swift found a way back to nature connection through revisiting positive role models, places and memories from his childhood and connecting with mentors and inspirational friends and places in the second half of his 20s. during this time jack fell deeply in love with the work and vision of ‘8 shields’ organisation and has staffed and participated on the musicians’ team on their flagship program called ‘the art of mentoring’ in the UK in 2017 and 2019. swift has worked with many different age-groups of children, teens and young adults in nature since 2016 from parent and toddler groups to late teens through volunteering initially with ‘holland park ecology centre’ and subsequently staffing with the ‘earth steward apprenticeship’ programme at ‘sacred earth’ and ‘cultivating curiosity’, ‘forest school camps’ and ‘kinship in nature’. swift’s first background is as a musician. he plays guitar, saxophone, tin whistle and loves singing and song.

dim

dim has worked in conservation for over 25 years, specialising in urban wildlife, uk biodiveristy and outdoor education. he has worked in multiple urban biodiversity enhancement projects, manages outdoor learning projects in tower hamlets, carries out ecological surveying, and has been a qualified Forest School Leader for nearly a decade.

educated in ‘environmental management’ at manchester metropolitan university, he has subsequently worked for organisations such as the ‘london wetland centre’, 'london wildlife trust’, ‘the natural history museum and the brilliant ‘tower hamlets cemetery park’.

becca

having enjoyed a childhood hand in hand with the more than human world – stars, willow trees, mud, bats, rocks, moonshine, frogs, dewy grass, cat – rebecca found herself parched and unwell from disconnection after living in the city for a decade. with a background in fine art, she had become a secondary school art teacher, PSHE lead and pupil welfare director, and has experience working with young people creatively and as a personal mentor. she specialises in resilience, holistic menstrual education and wellbeing, equality and diversity, and eco-schools initiatives.

in the mainstream sector she routinely sees the troubling effects of disconnection from the natural world and the dominant education system on young people and their wider culture. finding a route back through ecopsychology, nature connection practices, mentors, friends, creativity and sensational experiences at the turn of her third decade, led her to seek the health of the k.i.n. community and began as a volunteer on camps in 2021.

she learns from and is awestruck by the natural world around on a daily basis and is on a lifelong journey of re-learning to live with our fellow beings on planet earth in reciprocal balance, and stewarding the next generations to be able to do the same. she is beginning her level 3 training to become a qualified forest school practitioner in autumn 2022 with ‘k.i.n’. 

sara

sara joined kinship in nature in march 2021.  she previously worked as a registered childminder for fourteen years and noticed that being outdoors in wild spaces had a positive impact on children’s well-being, both mentally and physically.

as a child sara had the freedom to play with friends outdoors -getting grubby, exploring nature, building dens and lighting campfires.  she wanted to bring the same opportunities to today’s children, so she qualified as a forest school leader.

she runs under-fives and home school forest sessions at her own site within london wildlife trust’s braeburn park nature reserve and works with two local nursery schools.  

sara enjoys being part of the kin community.  working and training with like-minded folk is helping her to develop her connectedness with nature which she hopes to nurture in children too.

baba

baba has always enjoyed being outdoors and working with his hands and by the time he became a landscape gardener in his late 20s knew that he needed to spend most of his working life outside.  he trained as an arborist and became an instructor at a land based college training teenagers and adults to be tree surgeons.  he noticed how many of his students were much calmer, happier and more engaged during practical lessons outside the classroom.  this coincided with hearing about the ‘forest school’ approach which resonated deeply with him. he trained as a facilitator and set up a provision at his college before transitioning to a full time role at an outdoor forest school kindergarten.

working with early years and becoming a parent set off a cascade of learning, grounded in his degree in psychology and neuroscience, which deepened his conviction and passion for the benefits of ‘forest school’, nature connection and physical literacy for people of all ages. 

along the way baba has picked up a wealth of practical skills including green woodworking, bush craft, woodland management, ropework and green building along with undertaking specialist training swith industry leaders. baba believes the most important skills for a ‘forest school’ practitioner are those that help form strong relationships with participants that focus on their needs as individuals and as part of a community.

sheyamali

sheyamali (she/ they) is an interdisciplinary artist, arts education program facilitator & project manager. they love the outdoors and the calmness that it brings to their own life and to the lives of others. 

they work at k.i.n on the wildlings programme, camps and are soon to complete their forest school leadership training.

in their arts practice they use dance, drawing, sound, film and writing to explore both their connection and dislocation from nature and the land that they are surrounded by. they believe strongly in the many benefits of spending time in nature for physical and mental wellbeing but also as an abundant source of rich creative inspiration.

laura

toni

toni is a mother of three, earth-educator, poet and organic grower. for almost a decade toni worked in mainstream schooling and noticed that she and so many of the children felt stifled by the lack of access to green spaces.
when her own children were very young, she’d take them to work with alongside her at a local urban organic farm where they’d sit on a patch of soil and play with crickets or help plant lettuces. she noticed how her children thrived outside and these experiences along with her own nature-rich upbringing in east london led to the strong belief that children learn best and flourish while doing, watching, asking questions, dancing and singing about it, rather than stuck behind a desk being talked at. she started looking for ways to focus on nature-based play as a way of learning with the whole body, to experience the wild, even in urban areas, as kin, not as something separate and to be disregarded as lesser. this led her to finding forest school.
toni’s children have all attended regular forest school sessions since they were toddlers and seeing them bloom under the gentle guidance and deep care of the practitioners at kin, toni realised she wanted to develop her own understanding of the woodland landscape, craft, and play. she took a leap of faith and applied for a bursary and was accepted onto kin’s first forest school training cohort and is now a kin team member. she has taken several trainings with kin including a weekend immersed in 8 shields training, and natural play structures with jon cree. for toni, it is a privilege to be taught by and work alongside the forest school practitioners, the children and our more-than-human wild kin.