Breaking Boundaries: Planet, Mind and Action – 27 February 2026
Event resources
Overview
This event is organised by Psych Declares and RCPsych and is open to all Psychiatrists, mental health professionals and people with lived experience.
Programme
About the speakers
We are delighted to welcome the following speakers:
Dr Abi Perrin, Climate & Nature scientist, communicator & activist.
Dr Perrin is a research scientist turned climate and nature communicator and activist. Having recently stepped away from academia, she now focuses on facilitating both scientific understanding and emotional connection to what the Climate & Nature Emergency really means for our lives and societies. Alongside creating resources and developing learning experiences for a range of audiences, Abi collaborates on various environmental campaigns and also works to establish community-owned renewable energy projects and networks for change in her home city of York.
Dr Amelia Cussans, ST5 trainee in adult psychiatry, member of psychiatry declares and Planetary Health and Sustainability Committee (PHSC) of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Dr Cussans is a psychiatry registrar and climate organiser based in Bristol. She co-leads the Climate and Health Scorecard Initiative, which supports health organisations to take meaningful climate action. She has led a campaign for the Royal College to move from Barclays to an ethical, sustainable bank. She is the Cover Editor for the Journal of Climate Change and Health and sits on the Executive Committee of the RCPsych South West Division as a planetary health champion. She has organised with Psych Declares, Health for Extinction Rebellion, Health Workers for a Free Palestine, Right to Roam and Refugee Asylum Mental Health Network.
Dr Juliette Brown, Old Age Psychiatry, member of Psych Declares and climate activist
Dr Juliette Brown FRC Psych is a consultant in general and older adult psychiatry, and activist with Healthworkers for a Free Palestine, Medact, Health XR, Just Stop Oil and Defend Our Juries.
Dr Marion Neffgen, Consultant Medical Psychotherapist, member of Psych Declares, and members of the Medical Psychotherapy Faculty Climate and Sustainability working group
Dr May Van Schalkwyk, Public Health Researcher, University of Edinburgh
Dr Pete Knapp, Lived experience
Pete Knapp has had a career as a drummer, maths teacher, antimatter physicist, air quality researcher, and now filmmaker. In 2020, during his PhD, he joined Scientists for Extinction Rebellion and this marked the start of a significant mental health journey that has brought him here today.
Satish Kumar, Environment activist, Founder and Editor Emeritus at Resurgence and Ecologist magazine
Peace-pilgrim, life-long activist and former monk, Satish Kumar has been inspiring global change for over 50 years. Aged 9, Satish renounced the world and became a wandering Jain monk. Inspired by Gandhi, he decided at 18 that he could achieve more back in the world, campaigning to turn Gandhi's vision of a peaceful future into reality.
In his early 20s, Satish was inspired by the British peace activist, Bertrand Russell who was arrested aged 89 at an anti-nuclear demonstration. This prompted Satish's peace pilgrimage from India to Moscow, London, Paris, and America. Walking with no money and depending on the kindness and hospitality of strangers, Satish delivered a humble packet of 'peace tea' to the leaders of the four capitals of the nuclear world. Next year Satish will be 90, and he has devoted his life to campaigning for ecological regeneration, social justice, and spiritual fulfilment.
A world-renown author and international speaker, Satish founded The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity that seeks to inform and inspire a just future for all. He was the Editor of the charity's change-making magazine, Resurgence & Ecologist, for over 40 years, making him the UK's longest-serving editor of the same magazine. He continues to serve this publication as Editor Emeritus and by writing for this much-loved and acclaimed magazine which has been described by The Guardian as the 'spiritual and ecological flagship of the environmental movement'. Satish has been the guiding spirit behind several other internationally respected ecological and educational ventures. He co-founded Schumacher College which he continues to serve as a Visiting Fellow.
Dr Kirsten Shukla, Child and adolescent psychiatrist
Originally from Germany, Kirsten has worked in the UK since 1995. She has been a consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry since 2013. Kirsten became interested in climate change and mental health in 2019 and has since participated at various events to do with this. She has been co-founding psych declares, a group of climate activist psychiatrists, in 2019. She co-authored a position statement on climate change and mental health published by the German Psychiatric Association in 2022. She is a member of the RCPsych Planetary Health and Sustainability Committee.
Dr Shuo Zhang, Child and adolescent Psychiatrist, PHSC and member of Psych Declares
Dr Catriona Mellor, Child and adolescent Psychiatrist, PHSC, member of Psych Declares
Catriona is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist with a special interest in integrating an awareness of climate change and the benefits of nature-informed care into mental health services. Catriona has undertaken extensive training in Eco-therapy and nature-based practice. She co-founded EcoCAMHS in 2019, and was involved in a major publication in Lancet Planetary Health about climate anxiety in a sample of 10,000 young people globally in 2021. She is involved in the design and evaluation of nature-based health interventions in the NHS, and in the delivery of Nature Connectedness training to mental health staff.
Dr Lynne Jones OBE, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, writer, relief worker, consultant to WHO and Unicef and member of Psych Declares
Lynne Jones OBE, FRCPsych, PhD is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, writer, relief worker and an honorary associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has been engaged in assessing mental health needs and establishing and running mental health services in disaster, conflict, and post-conflict settings around the world since 1990.
She is a course director for the program on Mental Health in Complex Emergencies at the International Institute for Humanitarian Affairs, Fordham University, and consults to the World Health Organization, UNICEF and UNHCR. Her work has allowed her to witness first-hand the devastating impacts of the climate and ecological emergencies and the need for interventions to address it. This topic is addressed in her most recent book: Sorry For The Inconvenience But This Is An Emergency: The Nonviolent Struggle For Our Planet’s Future (Hurst 2024). Her doctoral research explored nonviolent activism during the cold war. In 2001, she was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for her mental health work in conflict-affected areas of Central Europe.
Dr Philippa Clery, Psychiatrist, PHSC, member of Psych Declares
Dr Santosh Mudholkar, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist with an interest in global health
Dr Sue Crimlisk, Child and adolescent psychiatrist
Caroline Hickman, Psychotherapist and globally recognised researcher and author
Dr Ching Li, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and member of Psych Declares
Dr Tom Nutting, Adult Psychiatrist and Medical Psychotherapist, member of the PHSC and Psych Declares
Clive Dolphin, Defend our Juries
Dr Pam Peters
Dr Louise Robinson
Dr Dasal Abayaratne
Slides
Any slides that are not available is due to lack of speaker permission to share.