About Cat & Crow | Our Story

Our story

Why Cat & Crow exists

Cat & Crow grew from a fairly simple observation: there is a lot of space between “I’m absolutely fine” and “I need a clinical service”, and surprisingly little useful support lives in that space.

Stress, worry, loneliness, confidence, life changes and feeling stuck are part of ordinary human life. They can still be difficult. Too often, people feel they have only two choices: cope alone or become a patient.

We wanted to explore something different. Rather than starting with diagnoses or treatment plans, Cat & Crow started with useful things people could actually do: reflective journalling, accessible psychology, conversation, creativity, practical tools and community spaces where nobody had to prove they were unwell enough to belong.

There was another reason too. Both of us have known times when other people’s help mattered. Part of Cat & Crow is our way of paying some of that help back: sharing the experience and skills we have gathered with people who may genuinely benefit from something practical, welcoming and human.

The approach developed through real community work in Torfaen. Groups, talks and local projects helped us see what people found useful, what needed changing, and how much difference it can make when support feels ordinary enough to walk into.

In February 2026, Cat & Crow became a Community Interest Company, giving a formal structure to work that was already taking shape. We are still developing, deliberately. The aim is to build things that work, learn from the people using them, and become a dependable part of the community around us.

Small and genuinely useful.

How we work

Knowledge behind it. Humanity around it.

We use thoughtful facilitation, plain psychological ideas and room for people to participate at their own pace.

Cat & Crow’s community activities are not individual therapy, group therapy, NHS care or an emergency service. Clear boundaries help an activity be useful without pretending to be something it is not.

Useful over impressive. People over processes. Digital-first where it helps, but never digital-only. And enough humour to remember that wellbeing does not have to be unbearably earnest.

The people behind it

Meet Kat and Gareth

Kat Wait

BSc (Hons), CNHC

Kat is a co-founder and director of Cat & Crow and plays a central role in shaping the way its groups and activities actually feel.

She brings a creative, reflective and people-centred approach to the work, helping create spaces that are welcoming without being intrusive and supportive without putting pressure on people to disclose more than they want to.

Kat facilitates community wellbeing and journalling sessions. Prompts, conversation, creativity and gentle structure leave room for people to participate in different ways: talk, write quietly, listen, colour, think or simply settle in.

Kat has almost 25 years’ experience across counselling, nursing and mental health work. Her background includes work as a counsellor, an NHS nurse and a mental health nurse in both NHS and private settings, including drug and alcohol services. That experience sits behind the calm, practical way she approaches people: professionally informed, but never interested in making someone feel like a case file.

Gareth Wait

DHP, HND, AfSFH, CNHC

Gareth is a co-founder and director of Cat & Crow, with more than 17 years’ experience as a hypnotherapist and psychotherapist.

His professional work has included anxiety, depression, stress, confidence and men’s mental health, with a particular interest in people who may not naturally see themselves as “therapy people”. It has shaped his belief that useful psychological ideas do not need to be wrapped in jargon or reserved for people with a diagnosis.

At Cat & Crow, Gareth brings that experience into community settings through journalling, practical psychology, wellbeing tools, workshops and resources people can use in their own time.

Before moving into therapeutic work, he was a bespoke furniture maker, which may explain his slightly unreasonable belief that things should not only look good but actually work.

He also writes about mental health and wellbeing. His book Head in the Shed takes a straight-talking look at men’s mental health, stress and reluctance to seek help, and has drawn warm feedback from readers.

Cat & Crow is not Gareth’s private therapy practice wearing a community hat. His professional background informs the work, but Cat & Crow’s community programmes are non-clinical.

Working together

Two approaches are usually better than one.

Gareth tends to pull an idea apart, ask how it works and build a structure around it. Kat is more likely to notice how it feels, how people may experience it, and where a little more flexibility or humanity is needed.

We try to combine structure with warmth, psychological understanding with creativity, and seriousness about wellbeing with a refusal to make everything unnecessarily solemn.

Organisation

A CIC built for community benefit.

Cat & Crow is a Community Interest Company, or CIC. In simple terms, the organisation is set up to work for community benefit and has an asset lock built into its legal structure.

Being a CIC does not make every idea automatically worthy, unfortunately. We still have to make sensible decisions, use money properly and be clear about what our work is for.

CAT & CROW CIC is limited by guarantee, incorporated on 3 February 2026. Our formal governance information stays on the separate CIC website.

Visit the CIC & governance website