Richard Cumes Senior Manager & Founder

Richard has enjoyed a professional career spanning over 25 years supporting individuals, families and groups in a wide variety of environments and circumstance.

This culminates in an ability to be intuitive, efficient & effective in supporting individuals who continuously find that the mainstream world is not offering the personalised approach which meets their needs at this time in their life.

A passionate advocate for experiential learning and an ambassador for getting outdoors, Richard originates from an Outdoor Education coaching background. He has taught sailing, paddle-sports, surfing, cycling, climbing and mountaineering. Opting to branch away from being a hard skills coach he pursued a career path supporting people to access the outdoors as a medium for personal development and teaching transferrable skills.

Richard has used these skills to enable people who have challenged services, been involved in substance misuse, learning disabilities, autistic spectrum disorders, mental health services, marginalised youth and specialist education to learn a new skill, stay out on an expedition, become part of a team learning to crew and sail a yacht, or simply becoming immersed for a short time perhaps making a fire and cooking marshmallows whilst naturally experiencing a powerful break away from everyday life, albeit an hour or a week.

After departing the sailing world of the South coast and heading to North Wales to work in the mountains Richard settled in North Devon in 1996 continuing to work in the outdoor industry both employed & freelance including a stint in 1998 at an outdoor centre in New Zealand.

Moving into residential services in 2003 supporting adults with complicated challenges, becoming a CQC registered manager for five years, running a unit for adults with complex dual diagnosis. In the last few years he has been working with young people within a 1 : 1 specialist education provision; OnTrack Education & most recently Inspire South West (ISW); a CiC in North Devon supporting families and young people, and also delivering work for the Youth Offending Team in Exeter as a part of ISW.

It has been within these roles that Richard has identified the need for what is now Foreal; a totally person centred provision fitting to the individual that flexes and adapts to the ever changing needs day to day, promoting the life skills needed to navigate our complicated world as a young person, focussing on creating strategies and tools to use today and take forward in life.

Richard is an active surfer, passionate road cyclist & enthusiastic yogi, pursuing the practice of mindfulness. He has a huge love for music creation and production, focuses on the importance of healthy eating & holds a fascination for the gut health correlation to mental & emotional wellness.

Focussed on seeing the holistic picture of each person there is a genuine desire to serve in supporting growth.

In amongst this he also ran his own business for four years making organic natural energy products for the sport industry called Jersey Pocket, a creation from his passion for cycling, developing it from scratch and building from the ground up.