Larissa Fry
Background
Larissa Fry moved to the Highlands with her family in early 2021, after a lifetime of loving Scotland and a decade or more of longing and planning.
She draws on a wealth of personal life experience to support and guide her in her work, alongside seeking out specific qualifications and training. She strongly considers herself a lifelong-learner.
She learnt compassion, empathy and patience whilst tutoring disadvantaged young people. She absorbed many ways of guiding learning in her fifteen years of classroom teaching and leading Outdoor Learning in schools.
She trained in nature identification, outdoor crafts and safe fire & tool use whilst completing her Forest School Leader (Level 3) training.
She discovered the importance of self-care and personal decision-making when she developed a chronic illness. She practises Qi Gong, meditation, enquiry and chant, and makes conscious balanced decisions (particularly around time and energy use) to support her health.
Over the last twelve years her interests, personal and professional, shifted wholeheartedly from indoor to outdoor. She has participated in many outdoor and nature-based courses, groups and camps, including Women's Groups (as both participant and leader) where she learnt deep listening, how to support circles and how to hold Council. In particular Larissa has worked closely with Carolyn Hillyer and The Braided River, from Merripit on Dartmoor, and through visiting and working at QiGong and Rise Up Singing camps - true village community camps at Buckfast on Dartmoor..
Training
Larissa truly, deeply learnt the healing and 'wholing' power of nature through her Ecopsychology training - which included multiple deep nature intensives, solo vigils, a three day Vision Fast and outdoor practices covering the three realms of:
- Nature, Health & Wellbeing, Greencare
- Natural Healing & Wholing, Development and Ecotherapy
- Deeper Nature and Spiritual Ecology
Larissa holds the first accredited UK qualifications in Regenerative Ecopsychology: Ecopsychology and Nature-Based Practice: Foundation (Level 3) and Advanced Pathway (Level 4) from three years of study with Natural Academy.
She also draws on her knowledge and skills as a qualified and experienced Forest School Leader, Teacher, tutor, mentor, wife and mother. It is important to Larissa that people can be as they are and that they learn to understand and love themselves - in connection with the wider world. She has sought out training in many neuro-diverse conditions in order to support this.
Larissa is Outdoor Emergency First Aid, Food Hygiene & Forest School Leader Qualified and is fully insured. All certificates can be seen on request. She is a member of the Nature and Health Practitioners Network, Nature Connection World, the EcopsychologyUK practitioners network, the Forest School Association and Outdoor and Woodland Learning (OWL) Scotland.