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Our Training Team

Meet our experienced and dedicated training team.

Hilary Lythgoe

Director of Resources

With twenty-five years’ experience in management Hilary is dedicated to the areas of IT, Facilities and Health & Safety.

For the last eight years Hils has led a Facilities team at a local charity working across ten sites. Hilary’s professional interests are negotiation & procurement, quality governance and solution focused strategies to support the charity to run efficiently, effectively and safely.

Hils is passionate about good mental health and ensuring Herts Mind Network can deliver the best services for clients.

In her spare time she enjoys walking her dog, visiting her friends in Ireland and is an avid Watford FC fan, never missing a match.

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Mike Riggans

Senior Service Lead - Training & Learning

After graduating with a BSc Honours in Psychology, Mike started his journey at Herts Mind Network in 2017 as a volunteer gaining experience supporting individuals with their mental health. Since then, he has supported people with their mental health in a number of roles such as, Peer Support, Community Support, Group Facilitator and Volunteer Coordinator.

Mike’s passion for learning and training has led to becoming HMN’s Training and Learning Lead, which involves working with a variety of local and national organisations to support them in creating a healthy workplace culture that embraces mental health. He is incredibly compassionate about employee wellbeing, self-compassion and suicide prevention.

In his spare time, Mike loves to continue learning at home, experimenting with cooking, watching horror films and being consumed with the duties of looking after two very hyper kittens!

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Jenna Farrelly

Mental Health Trainer

Jenna has more than 15 years experience working in and around the mental health sector, previously securing a BSc with honours in Criminology and Forensic Investigation. She is extremely passionate about Psychology, recently enjoying some Trauma Informed Training that has heightened her interest in this particular area.

After running her own businesses for a few years, Jenna is keen to put all of her learning and experience into developing new and exciting training sessions for service users, staff, corporate clients and volunteers.

Jenna has 2 children, a step son and 2 cats and enjoys a glass of fizz with her friends at the weekend!

 

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Ra-Becca Gooljar

Mental Health Trainer

Ra-Becca is passionate about human potential and empowering people to live rich and fulfilling lives.

She initially qualified as a solicitor and then started her career with Mind as a Young Persons’ Advocate in 2007. Since then she has worked for various branches of Mind and other charities offering wellbeing coaching, facilitating wellbeing groups and leading mental health courses (amongst other things).

She has also spent several years travelling and volunteering in various communities and wellbeing organisations.  

In her spare time Ra-Becca enjoys being in nature and sound yoga.

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Victoria McDermott

Associate Trainer

Victoria has over 20 years experience, in the health and wellbeing industry working throughout the UK and Europe with her training sessions and workshops.

A key focus of her work has always been mental health and she creates a safe space for others to explore different possibilities and real-life scenarios to enable deeper understanding to take place.

Victoria is passionate about raising awareness around mental health and providing practical tools and strategies to help people overcome adversity and challenge.

Meditation has been central to her vision in encouraging everyone she encounters to practice this empowering tool for mind relaxation. In her spare time she enjoys water sports and travelling.

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Thea Bailey

Associate Trainer

Thea been delivering workshops in person as well as online for HMN since 2018.  Thea has a BSc (Hons) Psychology and is a practicing therapeutic counsellor. She works with individuals as well as providing family counselling.  Thea is a specialist couples counsellor, and has completed her training with The Gottman Institute.  She has a love of horses and is qualified as an Equine Assisted Therapist. 

Her background is in the charity sector working as a project manager delivering government funded projects to help people move their lives forward.  She worked for many years with a business enterprise agency Wenta, and is a specialist in business start-up advice.

She loves travel and is fortunate to have friends to visit all over the world.  Her favourite past time is taking long walks with the dogs. 

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Lisa Gwilliam

Associate Trainer

Lisa originally trained as a massage therapist and aromatherapist over 16 years ago, later becoming a qualified trainer with a focus on health and wellbeing specialising in topics such as sleep and stress relief.

Having always had an interest in mental health awareness and support, she joined Hertfordshire Mind Network at the beginning of 2022 as a Mental Health Trainer and Nightlight Crisis Cafe Support Worker. Lisa is an experienced trainer with a passion for collaborating, sharing knowledge and empowering people with the tools to support themselves.

In her spare time, she likes exploring new places, spending time with loved ones, and anything involving live music and dancing!

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Irtiza Qureshi

Associate Trainer

Irtiza is proud to have been training for Herts Mind Network for a number of years now. He is a qualified teacher, researcher and public sector trainer, specialising in health, education and marginalised communities.

He is particularly interested in health inequalities and has published several articles on the subject and holds a PhD in health services research. 

Alongside researching and teaching at various universities, as an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, he has trained over 700 organisations on mental health issues.

In his spare time Irtiza likes to play racquet sports, go for long bike rides and loves spending time with his family.

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