What connects fostering, youth work, yoga, meditation and playing a gong before an audience of hundreds?
For Zen Community Hub founder Neil Perry-Timson, the answer is people.
His work has taken different forms, but the thread running through it is helping people feel supported, connected and more able to navigate life’s pressures.
Fostering, family support and the belief that carers need care too
Neil is a longstanding foster carer and adoptive parent. Before developing his wellbeing work, he also worked as a centre-based youth worker for Nottinghamshire County Council.
He later became a hub home carer within a Mockingbird constellation, supporting ten satellite foster families. Mockingbird is an extended-family model in which a central hub home provides practical help, relationships and a sense of community for a group of fostering families.
For Neil, that meant being a consistent source of support, helping families remain connected, contributing to support groups and training, and providing planned support sleepovers when needed.
The role developed skills that cannot always be captured by a qualification:
- Listening without rushing to solve everything.
- Remaining calm when family life becomes difficult.
- Building trust while maintaining appropriate boundaries.
- Coordinating the different needs of children, carers and professionals.
- Recognising when specialist support may be needed.
- Helping carers and young people feel less isolated.
Neil has also delivered workshops for The Fostering Network about the experience of being a male carer. His LGBTQ+ training has explored identity, inclusive language and the ways stigma and toxic shame can affect children, young people and adults.
The purpose has always been practical: helping foster families provide safer, better-informed and more affirming support.
His involvement did not end when a workshop finished. Through training, foster-carer support groups, peer contact and practical help, Neil continued supporting families through both everyday pressures and more demanding periods.
These experiences gave him a close understanding of the weight carried by people who spend much of their lives caring for others. They also strengthened one of the ideas behind Zen Community Hub:
The carer needs care too.
Readers can learn more about The Fostering Network’s Mockingbird programme.
Creativity, art and design
Neil’s creative background began with studying Art and Design at Staffordshire University, followed by work as a product designer. Art and music have remained important parts of his life, shaping how he communicates, solves problems and brings people together. This experience places him in a strong position to develop creative workshops that encourage self-expression, confidence and connection in a relaxed, welcoming environment.
More than 20 years in holistic wellbeing
Neil also brings extensive experience in holistic wellbeing. He has been a Reiki Master for more than 20 years, a yoga teacher for 15 years and a sound therapist for 6years, alongside training in aromatherapy and spiritual life coaching. Rather than treating these as separate practices, he draws upon them to create thoughtful and adaptable wellbeing experiences.
Combined with his experience of therapeutic parenting, fostering and supporting foster families, this gives Neil a valuable understanding of both personal wellbeing and the pressures people may face behind the scenes. It places him in a strong position to help Zen Community Hub develop compassionate, inclusive support for wider communities—while always recognising that community wellbeing activities complement, rather than replace, professional healthcare or specialist services.
Creating The Zen Rooms
Neil established The Zen Rooms as a holistic wellbeing business offering yoga, meditation, sound healing, workshops, retreats and community events.
His approach blends practical relaxation with a warm and welcoming style. Nobody needs to arrive flexible, perfectly calm or dressed as though they have wandered out of a yoga catalogue.
Through this work, Neil has supported people locally while developing collaborations further afield.
Taking sound healing to London
In June 2026, Neil was invited to provide live sound healing for Karen Ruimy’s Inner Child Path experience at the Royal Geographical Society in London.
He used crystal and Tibetan bowls, a Rav Vast drum and gongs to accompany parts of the guided experience. The event brought his work to a reported audience of more than 500 people.
The appearance was covered by the Mansfield, Ashfield & Sherwood News Journal in Sound healer makes waves at prestigious capital venue.
You can also view the collaborative Instagram post shared with Karen Ruimy.
Neil later discussed the experience during an interview with Kelly Hinch on BBC Sounds. The interview begins at approximately 2 hours 17 minutes.
Why create a separate community group?
The Zen Rooms remains Neil’s independent business. Zen Community Hub is a separately governed, committee-led, not-for-profit community organisation.
Creating the Hub allows ideas to be developed collectively, supported through appropriate funding and shaped with the communities they aim to benefit.
Neil brings experience and enthusiasm, but the committee provides shared governance, wider insight and the useful ability to tell him when one of his ideas needs a little more tea and thought.
Related article: Why We Created Zen Community Hub
