ABOUT US
Dr Charlotte Dean - Director
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Charlotte is a JNC professionally qualified youth worker. She is also a qualified teacher, assessor and internal/external quality assurer with almost 30 years experience in working with young people who are disadvantaged or disengaged and who may have had little opportunity to spend time outdoors in the natural world. Charlotte specialises in utilising wilderness therapy techniques and nature-based arts activities to connect and engage young people with the wild spaces around them.
Charlotte's previous role before setting up Rewilding Youth was as a university lecturer and researcher specialising in environmental and transformative education. Her research focused on engaging marginalised and disadvantaged young people in environmentally focused issues using participatory action research methods. She is really interested in exploring how spending time outdoors has an impact on young people's mental and physical health and well-being. Charlotte is also really keen to find out whether engaging young people in human rewilding processes, particularly those who are disadvantaged or disengaged and whose voices have been less likely to be heard, has an impact on their social, political and environmental agency.
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Charlotte has worked in many educational settings including schools, colleges, youth projects and universities and her doctoral thesis explored alternative ways of educating young people, particularly those who find the mainstream schooling system difficult to engage with. She found that nature-based education, founded on the principles of self-direction, freedom, creativity and exploration was a direction that she herself wanted to develop further through Rewilding Youth.
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Contact: Charlotte@rewildingyouth.co.uk
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Colin Phillips - Youth Environment Education Worker
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I began my journey into nature-based education through training and teaching bushcraft skills on the East Coast of Yorkshire. Working with families to provide hands-on experiences on the land sparked a deep passion for this kind of learning. Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to understanding how to better connect young people with the natural world — and, through that, with themselves.
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I believe that experiential learning is one of the most powerful ways to support this connection. When children and young people are given the freedom to explore, follow their own interests, and take ownership of their experiences, nature becomes not just a place to learn, but a space to grow. Green and blue spaces offer an infinite array of discoveries — not just about the world around them, but about who they are within it.
My approach is informed by academic theory but always grounded in hands-on, real-world practice. I’m especially interested in moving away from more traditional models of environmental education. Rather than focusing solely on facts or behaviour change, I aim to provide young people with the space to build a personal, meaningful relationship with the natural world — on their own terms. In this work, I see myself less as a teacher and more as a guide, creating opportunities for connection rather than directing outcomes.
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While many of the most beautiful and powerful interactions with nature are hard to measure, I’m deeply interested in the long-term impact these experiences can have. Both contact and connection with the natural world are vital — not just for understanding ecosystems, but for fostering wellbeing, identity, and belonging.
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I’m also passionate about supporting other educators to feel confident in providing these kinds of opportunities. By sharing ideas and approaches, I hope to help others create inclusive, open-ended experiences where all young people can feel at home in nature.
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Stay wild.
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Contact: Colin@rewildingyouth.co.uk
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Neill Reade - NCS Youth Support Worker: Outdoor Education
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Neill is passionate about the outdoors and knows the many benefits spending time outdoors can bring to young people.
A qualified Mountain Leader, Neill has worked with, and supported many organisations and charities to provide various outdoor activities for people with mental health issues, as well as being a volunteer warden on Yr Wydffa (Snowdon). These positions enable Neill to work as part of a team caring for people on the activities, or hiking, as well as fostering care for the local environment. Neill has participated in tree planting in the local area, as well as path maintenance in the Lake District and Snowdonia. Always carrying a bag to collect other people’s litter and always with a smile on his face!
Neill has recently joined the team after moving from formal teaching at East Riding College to help us deliver our META NCS programme which works with young people disengaged from mainstream education and aims to reconnect them with their chosen life path. Neill has a passion for the outdoors and when not at work, participates in outdoor activities such as mountain biking, climbing, paddleboarding, long distance hiking and wild camping.
Neill has a Certificate of Higher Education which included modules on childhood studies, working with young people, and an introduction to child psychology. He then went on to complete the Certificate of Education. He is also looking at courses linked to outdoor wilderness therapy and hopes to be studying this in the near future.
He is very keen to use all of his experience to deliver outdoor activities which will support young people in various ways such as building confidence and self esteem, as well as guiding them onto a positive outcome, using nature and the outdoors to inspire young people.
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Contact: Neill@rewildingyouth.co.uk
Les Moss - Director
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Les is a JNC professionally qualified youth worker with a degree in Youth and Community Studies. He is also a qualified Level 3 Forest School Leader and accredited ASDAN assessor. Before working at Rewilding Youth, he was a Youth Work Practitioner in Hull for over 10 years. He graduated from university in 2015 after completing his Youth and Community Work Practice degree.
Les' background was originally in sports development and he was responsible for coaching a number of youth rugby league teams as well as delivering the first Street Games and Doorstep Sports across the city of Hull to a wide range of different groups of young people from 2002 onwards.
Since 2011 Les was the lead Youth Worker and alternative education worker at Longhill Link Up Trust on Longhill Estate in Hull and then at Child Dynamix until 2016 when he moved into the Lead Youth Worker role in a 5 year National Lottery funded project called Youth In Nature which engaged hard to reach, marginalised and isolated young people in activities that focused on the environment, wildlife and conservation.
It was during this period that he realised the power that working with young people in the natural world had on their mental and physical health and wellbeing. He then worked to gain his Level 3 Forest School Practitioner qualification as well as gaining new skills in foraging, bushcraft and green wood work.
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Les is committed to providing inspirational outdoor activities and educational opportunities for young people, especially those young people who may not normally access the outdoors due to living in an urban environment.
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Contact: Les@rewildingyouth.co.uk
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Ruby East - Youth Environment Education Worker
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Ruby cultivated her love for the outdoors through her ‘Wild Child’ spirit in a childhood spent outdoors and decided to pursue this calling after participating in a Wild Rite of Passage experience on Dartmoor, Devon when she was just 16. She now continues to extend and deepen this work at Rewilding Youth as a young adult. She has a passion for working with young people and is committed to developing and delivering projects which connect and invest young people and surrounding communities in the natural world.
Ruby began her work with Rewilding Youth as a volunteer whilst finishing her college education, she then joined the team in the summer of 2023 as a Trainee Outdoor Educator and is now employed full time through the National Lottery Climate Action Fund as a Youth Environment Education Worker. During this time, she has delivered, in partnership, many successful projects and transformative work.
Her passion lies in developing and setting up projects which will provide young people, who otherwise don't have the chance, to connect and spend time in the wild.
She is also learning the art of funding bid writing and also working towards putting together a Rewilding Youth Blog, writing articles and finding ways of sharing the importance of outdoor connection with people. Another of her roles is working in partnership with our Youth Researchers on our Ideas Fund Research project as a Youth Environment Activist.
She is currently doing a year long course in Devon, with a focus on outdoor leadership (Call Of The Wild 2024 - WildWise) in which she is exploring the different pathways to nature connection in hopes to bring this knowledge back to share with Rewilding Youth and the people of Hull.
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Contact: Ruby@rewildingyouth.co.uk
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Graham Johnson - Natural Builder, Craftsman & Educator
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Graham is a hands-on natural builder and craft educator with a deep commitment to sustainability and traditional skills. He completed a year-long Practical Sustainability course with Shift Bristol, covering natural building, forestry, food growing, and low-impact living. Since then, he’s been involved in building several roundhouses using reciprocal roofs and traditional techniques, and took specialist training in A-frame timber construction using traditional joints with the Dangstein Conservancy in Surrey.
Graham’s practical experience includes working on a Grand Designs house, as well as on the grounds of Ben Law’s iconic woodland home in Prickly Nut Wood. He has also contributed to community and public art through large-scale willow sculptures at Normanby Hall Country Park near Scunthorpe. He regularly runs green woodworking sessions—making and using shave horses, building pole lathes, and leading willow weaving classes for individuals and groups.
Passionate about inspiring others, especially young people, Graham runs workshops that reconnect people with hand skills and the natural world. He brings a blend of deep practical experience, traditional knowledge, and a warm, down-to-earth teaching style to every project.
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Contact: Graham@rewildingyouth.co.uk