Thank you for visiting our site. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, have any questions or queries, please get in touch using the form here, or email us at [email protected].
To make bookings or discuss specific treatments or services, please contact the practitioners listed on this site directly.
The map below shows the area we cover between us.
Practitioner listings will indicate whether they are based at a specific premises, and whether they offer a mobile service. Some offer services by phone or video call too, but all of them operate in the Forest of Dean and surrounding area.
If you live in this area, or are just visiting, we will be happy to help.
If you are a practitioner wishing to join our group or our Directory, please find below a set of FAQs for your information.
Contact us for an application form or with any further questions. We look forward to hearing from you.
The Directory is run by a volunteer group of complementary healthcare practitioners who are all independent small business owners in their own right. We came together due to a shared passion to make people aware of the wide variety of therapies and services that are available, and the breadth of conditions they can help with, in the Forest of Dean region.
To join the Forest Wellbeing Directory you need to have insurance covering you to provide the holistic or complementary healthcare services for which you are listed, and be able to provide two sponsors who can confirm that you are a competent practitioner. You also need to practice in the Forest of Dean or surrounding area (see the map above) but may also practice elsewhere. Other criteria listed on the site are purely to help potential clients choose a practitioner that meets their needs, and are not prerequisites for joining.
A sponsor can be anyone who has experience of you as a practitioner or therapist. They may be a regular client, another therapist in the same or different modality, a teacher, or a supervisor. If you offer more than one therapy you do not have to provide a sponsor for each one. You are responsible for obtaining permission from your sponsors to be approached, and to provide their personal details.
When you apply to join the Directory a member of the Committee will contact your sponsors by phone or email and ask them whether they would be happy to recommend you to friends, family etc. Once they have confirmed this, they will not be contacted again and their details will not be retained; we will simply record that your sponsors were contacted and endorsed you.
Membership of the Directory is annual and covers the period from October – October. If you join less than 6 months into the year the full fee is payable; if more than 6 months, half is payable. There are two levels of membership. Gold ensures that you will be one of the first names returned in any search that identifies you. Silver members are returned in search too but after Gold members. Other than this distinction, search results are shown in a random order. Membership for the year from October 2019 is £40 for Gold and £25 for Silver.
Yes. Forest Wellbeing has a nominated Data Owner and Data Controller and the database behind the website is protected. Your data is held for the legitimate interest of managing and populating the database only and will never be sold or given to any third party. If you cease to be listed on the Directory your details are not retained. If you want more details about GDPR compliance please contact the Committee.
No. All Forest Wellbeing does is to check that registered practitioners hold valid insurance for the services that they are listed for, and that their sponsors are happy to recommend them. We do not check qualifications nor professional registrations, or perform any kind of check on competence. There is a disclaimer on the website that explains this to potential clients.
Forest Wellbeing is a not for profit organisation run by volunteers. Your subscription is used to cover the costs of hosting the site and promoting it through advertising, and to offset the cost of creating the site in the first place. Any surplus funds are used to cover updates to the site, or fund improved functionality or more promotion for the Directory.
No. Forest Wellbeing has two aspects, public facing promotion and internal support. The Directory is the main face of the public aspect while the Facebook group is the principle vehicle for internal activities – socialising and mutual support for practitioners. You can join the Facebook group free of charge without being on the Directory, although if you are on the Directory you will automatically be included in the Facebook group as well (unless you specifically ask not to be).
The Directory is specifically for practitioners, but if you are in the wellbeing industry we would love to have you as an advertiser or sponsor. This may be suitable for spas, locations with therapy rooms for hire, retreat venues, gyms or fitness clubs, or accommodation amongst many others. Please contact the Committee to discuss options.
No, we include holistic and complementary practitioners only. If you offer massage therapy and meet the other criteria, we may include you but only for that aspect of your services.
No, this Directory is specifically for practitioners in the Forest of Dean area. However if you would like to set up a similar service in your area we are happy to discuss sharing the website structure with you. Please contact the Committee for more details.
If you are listed for services in which you are qualified, you can add into your pen picture that you are training in another. You cannot be listed to provide a service unless you are qualified and insured to provide it as a chargeable service to members of the public. Once you have achieved that you can join the Directory or update your listing to include the new modality.
If you are no longer qualified to be on the Directory or want to be removed, you can approach the Committee and ask for your listing to be removed. We do not monitor practitioners to ensure they are still qualified to appear. You will not be entitled to any refund of subscriptions paid unless they were paid 14 days or less prior to your asking to be removed.
If you have a valid complaint against a listed practitioner, we recommend you raise it with them in the first instance and try to resolve the issue. If that’s not successful then you can contact the Committee with details of your complaint. We will investigate it and, if appropriate, remove the practitioner concerned from the directory either temporarily or permanently. If you think the listing is inaccurate, again you should initially raise this with the practitioner concerned. Only if you are unable to resolve the matter with them should you bring it to the Committee. If your own listing is wrong or needs to be amended, you can contact the Committee with the correct details and ask for it to be updated.
Holistic and complementary practitioners are not generally permitted to make statements about ‘treating’ or ‘curing’ any condition. The Forest Wellbeing Directory lists practitioners as being able to ‘help with or alleviate the symptoms of’ conditions and clearly states that holistic and complementary therapies are not a substitute for medical advice. We advise you to ensure your clients and potential clients understand the difference between helping with symptoms and helping with their condition. If you are a member of a professional body, they may have guidelines on what you can and cannot say and you should refer to those. We are happy to talk to any practitioner who is concerned about conflict between the Directory and guidance from professional organisations. The Advertising Standards Authority will contact anyone whose advertising they feel is misleading, and seek to work with them to make necessary changes. It is understood that unless wellbeing practitioners are able to say what they can do, they are not able to attract clients.
Yes, absolutely. We want the Directory to be as comprehensive and varied as possible so if you do something we don’t currently have listed, we would be delighted to have you assuming you meet the criteria for joining.
No. Obviously we hope that all listed practitioners will generate business through the Directory, and we will be doing our best to make that possible. All the members of the Committee are on the Directory so have a vested interest in its success. This is the first Directory of its kind in the region so there is little data to draw on. We believe that being able to search on condition as well as therapy or service will make this particular Directory attractive to potential clients and we aim to enlist support and interest from organisations such as the NHS as well as the existing endorsement from Forest Enterprise Partnership. We also encourage members of the Directory to publicise it as much as they can amongst their potential client base. Ultimately however, we are not able to make any statement about the amount of business it’s likely to generate either in general or for any particular practitioner.
We are always happy to hear from people who share our passion for wellbeing and for the Forest of Dean. Please contact the Committee to talk about how you would like to be involved.
