The Team
Mental Health Swims is run by combination of both paid staff and volunteers with a board of directors providing direction and guidance.
Our Directors
Rachel Ashe
Founder & Managing Director
Rachel Ashe is an outdoor swimmer, fully fledged member of the big feelings club and an eternal optimist. In 2019, she founded Mental Health Swims, a UK based organisation that celebrates the healing power of cold water and community. Back on dry land you’ll find her working with universities, mental health charities and environmental projects to champion kindness as the antidote to mental illness stigma.
Rachel has written for Mind charity, Therapy today as well as a contribute to a number of outdoor swimming books and has recently been interviewed by the BBC World service, Vogue and the New York Times. Rachel lives with a complex mental illness herself and is passionate about social prescribing, empowering patients to find solace in the outdoors and campaigning to end mental illness stigma. You can follow her journey with on Instagram at @rach.ashe
Jacqui Barnett
Director
Jacqui is an avid outdoor swimmer, who is passionate about the benefits of cold water therapy and making this opportunity and experience available to all. She has lived experience of supporting others who have complex mental health needs and is a trained mental health first aider. Jacqui has board experience across a number of organisations supporting neurodiversity, carers and mental health. Jacqui is an accountant who brings to Mental Health Swim’s Board, experience in strategic business planning, controls, risk management, finance, governance and compliance.
Mark Harper
Director
Mark Harper is a consultant anaesthetist at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals who, accidentally and via quite unrelated routes, has developed an interest in the negative effects of getting cold during surgical operations and the positive effects of cold water swimming. His professional life and his PhD are based around keeping patients warm. However, his research increasingly involves immersing people (and, as a member of Brighton Swimming Club, himself) in cold water in collaboration with the Extreme Environments Laboratory at Portsmouth University. He is also the expert advisor on cold for the Outdoor Swimming Society. His main current research project is the Outside 2 study which is comparing the effectiveness of outdoor swimming with usual care for the treatment of depression.
Cory Hughes
Director
Cory is an award-winning strategic design leader and educator. As Director of Strategic Design at Perago, she focuses on solving big-picture problems in public services, education, and climate change to improve the wellbeing of future generations.
Cory has a decade of leadership experience in digital design and technology companies across the UK, Greater China, and Australia. In addition to designing digital transformation programmes across these regions, Cory championed a ‘more than user-centred’ approach to experience strategy and behaviour change for sustainable development and third sector organisations, including Historic Environment Scotland, Arup, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the Marine Stewardship Council.
Outside work, you’ll find her exploring the watery parts of our world; from co-founding a surfing magazine to swimming and sea kayaking at home in Gower, Wales.
Our Core Team
Sarah
Community Engagement Manager
Sarah is our Community Engagement Manager, she works with our swim host volunteers through the application process and training and as our Mental Health First Aider, she provides 1-2-1 check-ins with volunteers that need to talk. She is also the Safeguarding Lead for MHS, working on making sure we have a safeguarding culture in all that we do. Sarah has recently started working with various environment charities to explore how MHS can help support the health of our beloved waterways.
Having struggled with anxiety, disordered eating and rejection sensitivity dysphoria, Sarah is passionate about the benefits that spending time outdoors can have on a busy mind. She enjoys wild swimming, hiking and foraging and is usually powered by good coffee and copious tasty snacks!
James
IT Manager
James is our IT Manager, maintaining all the back office systems that keep Mental Health Swims running. He is managing the new Swim Together application process as well as helping hosts work their way through their Swim Host training.
He is a passionate outdoor swimmer, using cold water to help manage his mental health. Outside of his working life, James is an avid photographer and artist.
Our Advocates
Nina Abeysuriya
Inclusivity Hero
Nina is an Edinburgh based writer, podcast host, barista, baker and single mother. She is an ex-mental health professional and had her own lived experience of mental health issues. As an enthusiastic all year-round outdoor sea swimmer she was so passionate about the benefits, she made a mini-series of episodes for her podcast, Being On The Inside, on wild swimming health and healing. When not in the water she aspires to be singing to a bigger audience than her dog and is a keen jumpsuit enthusiast. She is passionate about diversity, equality, and inclusion in access to outdoor swimming.
We talk a lot at Mental Health Swims about being welcoming to everyone yet we still have a predominantly white feed. Together with Nina we will be working on making sure that is no longer the case. We want to feel welcoming to all and empower everybody – all skin colours, backgrounds, ages, body shapes, abilities, genders and sexualities to join our swims. We want to create a community for those who experience exclusion or marginalisation.
Katie Peters
Wellbeing Hero
Hi there, I’m Katie. I am a Wellbeing Coach and workshop facilitator, a keen cold water swimmer and carefree dancer. I bring Lived Experience of mental health challenges to my work, simply meaning I share an understanding of how hard it can be to make changes when you’re not feeling at your best.
I am stoked to be working alongside Rachel and the team at Mental Health Swims, to make sure all of the fabulous volunteer hosts look after their own wellbeing too.
Catherine Gemmell
Environment Hero
I started volunteering as a swim host with Mental Health Swims in early 2022 and now run monthly dips with co-host Kelly at Roseisle beach in Moray, Scotland.
I’ve always loved swims in the sea and the creatures that call it home so I was absolutely delighted to become Scotland Conservation Officer for the Marine Conservation Society back in 2015. I help folks get involved in our beach cleaning and litter surveying project, Beachwatch. I then use this data to call for new laws from the Scottish Government to stop litter getting into our amazing ocean and washing up on our precious beaches. I’m honoured to have been asked to become an Environmental Hero with Mental Health Swims and hope to help groups across Scotland, and the rest of the UK, further connect to nature and take action to celebrate, protect and recover our incredible ocean.
Lou Jones
Environmental Hero
I come from a family of water lovers, my mum was my swimming teacher and my gran would plunge into any water regardless of the temperature. I returned to outdoor swimming when I was struggling with my mental health after losing both parents within two years of each other. I swim all year round and enjoy both the challenge of longer distance swims and more social chatty swims.
In 2019, my love of swimming and the environment brought about a career change from physiotherapist and researcher to running my own business. I set up Sea & Stream, an online shop which helps to save outdoor swimmers time by researching the most sustainable products available. We donate 1% of all sales to environmental organisations and also run a swim hat and goggle recycle scheme.
Our Partners
