creating a space that builds a foundation of wellness
founded in 2017
lead facilitator for holiday day camps
more information & how to apply
lead facilitator job description
work experience for holiday camps
more information here.
work opportunities 2026
want to work with us?
we are always on the lookout for potential facilitators to join our team. if you are interested in working with us in the future, please email us here.
in the meantime, why not get involved with our community and kinfolk on trainings and workshops we offer?
meet our kinfolk
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rosalyn has been with ‘kinship in nature’ since 2017, where she began as a volunteer, with the aim of taking the leap into assisting and training to be a ‘level 3 forest school leader’. inspiring children to flourish in their imagination and develop empathy with the world around them has been at the forefront of her 15 year career in the arts and now, in ‘forest school’. she has written and produced numerous films, stories and online games for children with ‘comic relief’, the ‘fairtrade foundation’ and the ‘marine stewardship council’ to name a few. all with the aim of creatively engaging children with issues of climate change and poverty inequality.
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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.
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rhiannon has been working in the field of nature connection and forest school for the past ten years, holding spaces for adults and young people to connect more deeply to themselves, each other and nature. this work has been held both in groups and one-to-one mentorship in both the urban wilds of london and the wilderness of dartmoor.
for the past five years, she has been immersed in soul-based deep nature connection work through animas valley institute and her mentor rebecca card. this work centres the process of soul initiation as essential for healthy human development, eldership and the evolution of our human species.
her personal development has taken her into studies and experiential exploration of how we as a human species became separated from nature in the first place. this has led to understanding that there is a spiritual dimension to this disconnect which is our lost connection with the feminine principle; that which reveals to us the sacredness of matter and all of life.
she is interested in how we heal this disconnect from the ground up, starting with our relationship to ourselves and our own bodies and how this process is supported by cultivating a relationship with nature which is mutually beneficial and reciprocal.
she believes this is both the root cause of the ecological crises, as well as other crises’ such as the mental health epidemic, and the key to the individual, social and cultural healing that needs to take place if we are to live in right-relationship with the earth and thrive as a human species.
she also has training in nature connection, ancestral skills, permaculture, therapeutic skills for outdoor leaders, holistic education and child development. her background is in the arts.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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eden just finished her training at 'kinship in nature'. she is deeply passionate about the benefits of nature-based education and loves working with and learning from young children - mostly so that she gets to play and connect to her own inner child!
she trained at the brit school in theatre and at the central school of speech and drama, where she loved expressing herself creatively. she then landed a job working in a school teaching drama through the curriculum. whilst she enjoyed it, she still felt trapped by the constraints of the education system and exhausted.
then she had a particularly challenging day, feeling totally burnt out, running between classes and dealing with a string of difficulties. but during this day there was one powerful moment. she got the year 6 class to make still images of storms at sea using their bodies. as they were creating them, a real storm began outside and they all ran to the window to watch, wishing they could experience it for real. she saw how they were so drawn to the power of nature outside and how it can really influence children’s creativity. she had her eureka moment - what if she could align her two passions - nature and working with children - and be a forest school leader?
since then her life has completely changed. she now works at kinship in nature, the garden classroom and wildwood nature school. she truly feels that her life has purpose and she's passionate about providing access to the therapeutic benefits of nature for all children.
photo coming soon
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ali is a volunteer at woodland wildlings and in camps. she is the mother of twins who attend the camp with her. as a family their 'happy place' is in the forest, exploring, playing, and having fun. she has a background in enjoying nature and has been helping her and other children to experience the freedom and joy of the outdoors for many years.
she is learning more and more about working at a forest school and is excited to work out how she can do this more in the future. working with the kin team has been fantastic in so many different ways and she believes that she has been so lucky to find such an amazing organisation, both for herself and her children. she loves meeting and getting to know the children that attend camps and seeing the effect of the woods on them - it is truly magical!
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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.
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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.
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anand is a friendly and fascinated forest school practitioner who is interested in patiently cultivating transformative community spaces that enliven us to the wild world around us.
sitting under a tree, he wonders:
how can we build ecological resilience alongside community resilience?
how can reconnection to the natural world foster reconnection to our own wonderful inner nature?
how can nature inspire and resource creative and playful states of flow?
together with his kinfolk, he weaves somatic healing, bushcraft, cross-cultural cosmologies, and play, to create oases of being and becoming.
at the end of the day he just wants to see people happy, and this is how he feels he can help...
“we all together stepped into a different space and time and created something lasting and soul nourishing.”
“richard, rhiannon & misty were like three lush trees standing tall and supporting through a journey of becoming someone on my own. the magic of a game in the woods, stories around the fire, even tears of compassion and love. it is the most nourishing experience i have given to myself in life. i became more me than ever. i think everyone should do forest school leader training, to remember the child inside, eager to play and discover joy. to learn about trees and plants, to remember that mother earth deserves our best selves. food for soul.”
laura ~ kin facilitator