Who we are
Kirsty Galloway
(she/her)
Founder
Kirsty is a mental health professional with ten years’ experience working in the charity sector in Greater Manchester at senior management level. She was responsible for developing, implementing, and delivering a range of innovative services in local communities for people struggling with their mental health. Many of the projects were delivered in conjunction with key stakeholders, including GP surgeries, local NHS mental health services, and clinical and public sector commissioners.
On a personal level, she always knew there was something ‘wrong’. She didn’t feel like she fitted in with the world, and seemed to be watching herself from afar, never fully present in her life. In 2020, Kirsty discovered she was living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and her life finally began to make sense.
She is passionate about helping people develop mindfulness skills in a trauma-informed way, and advocates for mindfulness to be taught with trauma in mind, ensuring that all those learning to work with their attention can do so in a way that best supports stability and regulation.
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Kirsty always felt like an alien who’d just landed from another planet, with no instruction manual on how to navigate the world. She experienced a constant sense of dread, lived in a state of hypervigilance, and experienced intense anxiety and panic.
In 2011, whilst working for a mental health charity, she discovered mindfulness, which sparked a curiosity about her inner landscape. She began to practice, and gradually noticed an improvement in her physical and mental wellbeing. She felt less reactive, less anxious, and more in tune with herself.
Kirsty trained to teach Mindful Resilience in 2013 and began developing and delivering mindfulness courses for people experiencing anxiety, stress, and low mood.
Three years into her personal mindfulness practice, things began to shift. As she sat down to meditate, intense sensations hijacked her practice. She couldn’t make sense of them, but the impact was felt in her nervous system with full force.
She didn’t understand what was happening to her. She’d been practicing mindfulness regularly and had experienced many benefits, but no matter how hard she tried to move her attention away from the intense sensations, it was pulled back into them over and over again.
In 2020, Kirsty had the opportunity to train in Advanced Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness with David Treleaven, a writer, educator, and trauma professional. As she learnt about trauma, and the way traumatic stress impacts the body, she immediately had a very clear picture of her experiences.
She realised she was living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and began to understand how her mindfulness practice had led her into direct contact with the traumatic stress held within.
She is fascinated by the way traumatic stress impacts the body and how mindfulness can be used as a tool to support nervous system regulation. Her own recovery journey now enables her to work with the nuances of her nervous system on a daily basis and be fully present in the world.
Qualifications & Training
◊ Advanced Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Certified Practitioner
◊ Mindful Resilience Teacher Training (Levels 1 & 2)
◊ Level 5 Diploma in Health & Social Care Management (Adults & Young People)
◊ Deepen Your Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Training
◊ Expand Your Window of Tolerance Training
◊ Neurodiversity Informed Mindfulness
◊ Internal Family Systems for Trauma-Sensitive Practitioners: A Comprehensive Guide
◊ Trauma Basics for Youth Workers
◊ 4-Foundations for Helping Trauma Impacted Youth
◊ Covid-19 Psychological First Aid
Kirsty is a member of the Global Compassion Coalition, an organisation dedicated to creating a global movement for compassion. At a local level, she is a member of the VCSE Health & Wellbeing Leaders Group facilitated by Manchester Community Central (MACC).
Justine Lea-Grime
(she/her, they/them)
Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Practitioner
Justine is a fully qualified and accredited counsellor and clinical supervisor. She started out her career as a youth worker and has gone on to work with people in the criminal justice system, CAMHS, social services, and within the charity sector. She now holds a busy private practice working with individuals and groups.
Her journey into therapy started after being diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder at the age of 21. Understanding her PTSD diagnosis encouraged her to recognise the importance of self-care and inspired her to train as a therapist in order to support other people going through emotional distress.
Justine discovered mindfulness almost by accident while completing a degree course at Salford University and has continued to integrate practices into her everyday life as well introducing mindfulness concepts to clients.
As a qualified teacher, she has delivered training on various issues to a wide variety of participants including teachers, the fire service, magistrates, and mental health practitioners. She is also qualified in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), Auricular Acupuncture, and Internal Family Systems therapy.
Justine is a passionate advocate of self-care and self-compassion as a strength towards effective communication and personal growth.
Kay Locke
(she/her)
Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Practitioner
Kay is an experienced yoga practitioner who has studied yoga for disabled people, Thai Yoga massage and yoga therapy for mental health. Integrating mindfulness into her everyday life and teaching, since studying with The Minded Institute in 2011, she went onto study mindfulness at both Bangor and Oxford Universities. Kay has been teaching yoga since 2009 and mindful movement since 2011. She is a qualified Trauma-Focused therapist, specialising in Transactional Analysis, and is currently training to be a clinical psychologist.
Kay works delivering counselling at Next Chapter CIC to neurodivergent people and their families. She has an active career as an autism trainer, working with Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, Manchester Metropolitan University, The Triple A Project and Next Chapter. Kay is the founder of HAPI CIC.
To rest and restore, Kay loves walks in nature with her dog, Juno, and mindful activities, including journalling. She has an ambition to attend a Dark Skies project to see the night sky.
Corinne Wilkie-Fessler
(she/her)
Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Practitioner
Corinne is a trauma-informed somatic and holistic wellbeing practitioner based in Edinburgh. She is the face of her brand KOA, through which she offers somatic experiencing, embodied practices, sound healing, reiki, yoga, systemic coaching, and mindfulness. Corinne is passionate about working with clients where they are on their journey, offering choice and working collaboratively, based on their individual needs.
Corinne has worked actively in the social sector since 1998. Her professional background includes working in education, social care, counselling, criminal justice, substance misuse and coaching. Corinne currently works within community justice as a therapeutic social worker in Edinburgh. In this role she facilitates groups, offers one to one interventions to support change, and has facilitated mindfulness development sessions for social workers. She is a National Mindfulness Forum chair and is a champion for trauma-informed mindfulness within her field.
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Corinne started her professional journey by training in systemic coaching supervision/constellation work in 2013, and has since qualified as a reiki master, yoga teacher, sound practitioner, mindfulness teacher, advanced trauma-sensitive mindfulness practitioner, and trauma-informed yoga and embodied resilience teacher. She chose to train in a range of offerings with the intention of having a diverse toolbox from which to work holistically with her clients. Professionalism is very important to her. She loves to collaborate with peers, and you will often find her engaging in various retreats, workshops, and events as a guest.
As a person, Corinne will tell you she has experienced trauma herself and understands how important it is to be heard and witnessed, to promote healing. She actively engages in mindfulness and embodied practices daily, which have become part of her self-care routine.
Corinne aims to encourage individuals to connect with their bodies, learn how to self-regulate in a healthy way and embody who they are fully. She believes that we all can bloom where we are planted with the right nourishment.
Christopher Rhodes
(he/him)
Trainee Mindfulness Practitioner
Chris is currently training in Trauma-Responsive Mindfulness and Counselling using the person centred approach, at Salford University. With a background in acting, he has had extensive experience with understanding the workings of the mind-body connection, our relationship to others and the space we embody.
Chris has always been passionate about supporting mental and emotional wellbeing, especially through compassionate, trauma-informed approaches. He has been volunteering with Yellow Beacon since September 2025.
His initial pull into acting was indeed to learn, and fully understand, the inner workings of human behaviour – what essentially makes us tick and makes us who we are. Driven by a deep need to further understand himself.
Through a number of years of therapy, and various wellbeing modalities tried and tested, Chris’s hunger to feel better and be happy really ran through the core of who he was, which inspired him to take the path himself.
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Chris came to mindfulness in a later chapter of his life, after having his own meditation practice for a number of years. He stumbled across mindfulness by chance, at a time when he was looking for work, and feeling particularly lost and overwhelmed by life.
One 8-week Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy course later and Chris was hooked! It started to embellish every part of his waking life, and coloured in so much more of his experience than he’d ever previously felt.
Discovering mindfulness transformed Chris’s relationship with stress and anxiety; it taught him that calm, self-compassion, and inner resilience are accessible with the right tools.
Chris deeply connects with Yellow Beacon’s aims and is pleased to be contributing to a space where people feel supported to explore what works best for them. He feels it’s a privilege to be part of this community and to help foster mindfulness in ways that genuinely nurture emotional and mental wellness.
His driving forces are: Creativity, Freedom, Choice, Fairness, Curiosity and Deeper Perspective.
Bari Pollard
(he/him)
Volunteer Non-Executive Director
Bari brings a different set of skills to the organisation. He is an experienced small charity leader, who has led various teams to support multiple voluntary groups with their technical requirements. He has extensive senior leadership experience within both charity and private sector organisations.
He spent five years working for Tameside, Oldham and Glossop Mind, supporting them to grow their service delivery across the borough. With an interest in how trauma affects friends and family, and the limited opportunities currently available, he is excited to support the aims and objectives of Yellow Beacon to improve this situation.
Bari currently works in the food industry. His role involves looking at ways to make the business more resilient and environmentally sustainable. In his spare time, you will normally find him walking across a field somewhere or camping on top of a hill.
All our frontline staff have a current Enhanced DBS Check.
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