I am a former Stamford primary phase Headteacher, and I live locally with my husband. I left my school leadership post in 2019 after developing a passionate interest in the strategic development and implementation of mental health and wellbeing strategy in educational settings and workplaces. My passion initially stemmed from a powerful desire to support the development of an improved mental health culture in my school community, and it was embedded and inspired by my experience of leading a mental health project in the school on behalf of MindSpace.

Throughout my time in the education profession, I was motivated by working in partnership with children, colleagues, and communities to promote and develop genuine wellbeing cultures; this approach led to many proud moments for the school and its children, families and staff and truly made a difference to the lives and outcomes of everyone involved.

Since leaving my school leadership post, I have continued to work in the field of children and young people’s mental health. I am now a qualified mindfulness teacher and in addition to providing resilience and mindfulness courses for colleagues in schools, I also advise school leaders and leadership teams in the private sector on how to develop and implement highly effective and impactful mental health and wellbeing strategies in their school communities and organisations based on the NHS 5 ways to wellbeing principles.

I am privileged to continue to work in partnership with the charity MindSpace providing and am excited to be supporting the MindSpace in business project in addition to ongoing work with educational settings in the local community.

I live with my family and very cheeky lab, Finley, in Ketton. I am a transformational coach and wellbeing strategist. I launched my business, Redwood Ellis, to offer a direct approach to managing wellbeing in the workplace.

I am passionate about starting conversations around mental fitness; my focus is collaborating with individuals and teams to create positive changes for themselves and their businesses. I believe a team’s wellbeing can be improved through effective communication, building an inclusive, compassionate culture and creating an environment where a person feels valued, engaged and self-motivated.

My career started with British Airways, who launched the first cultural change programme, I designed and trained the wellbeing unit of this ground-breaking programme for 16,000 crew. This shaped my belief that successful companies revolve around people who should be mentally and physically well.

I am working with MindSpace to develop a platform to reach out to Stamford businesses.

I’ve worked as an Executive Coach and Facilitator for over 25 years. As human beings, our success, our happiness, and indeed our mental health, often depends on our ability to communicate authentically and powerfully. I help teams and individuals learn how to engage in authentic conversations that that build trust and clarity and ultimately enrich relationships.

I’ve chosen to work alongside MindSpace because we have a shared commitment to supporting the health of our local community. Originally from Belfast, I lived in North America and Cambridge before relocating to Stamford where I live with my partner Paul.