Our Story

How it all began

Huckleberries was founded in 2019, in a back garden.

As a parent of three and a school governor for 13 years, Bev Cook saw first-hand how many children, especially neurodivergent children, struggle with their mental health in systems that were not built with them in mind. She came to believe that young people don’t need fixing. It is their environment that needs to change, and the way we hold space for them, so they can be their amazing, authentic selves.

In 2019, she set out to create that space, in her own back garden. What began as a small pilot, set up as a Community Interest Company, soon outgrew its home. Through 2020, family and friends helped clear and build our current site near Elstead, digging fence posts by hand, planting a willow dome and turning a patch of woodland into Basecamp. It opened its gate in June 2020.

In 2024, Huckleberries became a registered charity (Charitable Incorporated Organisation), governed by a Board of Trustees, and since January 2025 all our work has been delivered by the charity.

Since 2019, more than 400 children have come through our gate. Many are referred by our network of around 40 partner schools across Surrey. Most fall into the gap between the support ordinarily available in the classroom and the threshold for an Education, Health and Care Plan, and have no other support in place. That is why at least 70% of our places are free.

What we believe

Everything we do is rooted in nature and grows from four principles:

• Belonging. Every child needs to feel they matter, and to have a place where they can simply be themselves and feel that they belong.
• Mastery through passion-led learning. When children follow what they love, they discover they are good at things. Absorbed in their work, they experience the therapeutic benefits of ‘flow’, a calm, focused state that research links to wellbeing, and they rediscover a love of learning along the way.
• Autonomy. Trusted to make real choices in a space where they are free to explore, children grow in self-belief, confidence and a sense of agency, and find the courage to be authentically themselves.
• Compassion. As children are nurtured, they begin to care for others: their friends, our animals, their community and the natural world. With compassion for others they feel part of something bigger, which deepens their sense of belonging, because it matters to matter.

How we work

Huckleberries is a Trauma-Informed Organisation. Our staff are trained to understand and respond sensitively to the impact of trauma, and we place relationships, trust and emotional safety at the heart of everything we do, so that every child we meet feels heard, valued and empowered.

Many of us have walked a similar road as the families we support, and our team brings lived experience of that journey. We understand from the inside how much it means for a child to be accepted exactly as they are. Alongside us, a generous community of local volunteers shares their skills with the children, from beekeeping and woodwork to archery, leatherwork and music.

Where we are now

In 2026, Sir Brian May became our Patron, recognising the importance of our work; and Huckleberries was chosen as the Mayor of Waverley’s charity of the year.

Today, we provide over 200 hours of therapeutic support to children every week, alongside support for their families. Through our Nurture Farm and Wild Projects, children heal, rediscover their curiosity, and find their confidence again. Across all five days, our placements run for at least 24 weeks, because genuine change is built on trust, relationships and belonging, and all three take time to grow.

The children we support fall into the gap between what the classroom can provide and the threshold for an Education, Health and Care Plan. Too many families wait in that gap unseen and unheard for years, with nowhere to turn. We will keep standing in it with them, supporting every child who comes through our gate, and working with local councillors, funders and partners to champion early, nature-based support for the many more who need it. 

We are proud of how far we have come, and humbled by the families, volunteers, partners and funders who have helped us get here.

What began in a back garden is now, for hundreds of children, a place to be me.