Our People
Elaine Harvey - Director
Elaine Harvey is the founding director of Moving Minds and a creative practitioner rooted in arts for social justice. With over 25 years’ experience as a dance and theatre artist, university lecturer, and community practitioner, her work is driven by a belief that creativity can challenge inequalities, amplify lived experience, and reimagine how we understand health and care.
Her practice spans a wide range of settings, bringing people together through collaborative, socially engaged arts projects and creating spaces where movement becomes a way to express, question, and reclaim personal narratives often shaped by illness.
Elaine founded Moving Minds on the principle that people are experts in their own lives. She sees dance not only as a tool for wellbeing, but as a radical, collective act—one that resists narrow medicalised views of the body and opens up more human, inclusive ways of thinking about health, identity, and agency.
Rachel Conlon - Director
With a career spanning over 30 years, Rachel has worked professionally as a qualified Drama therapist and as a community drama practitioner.
She has a specific expertise working within the arts and criminal justice sector, delivering high quality relational trauma informed drama provision in the female prison estate and with women who are criminal justice experienced living in the community.
Rachel writes and creates Theatre in Education plays which tour nationally and also adapts theatre into film for national digital platforms. She is passionate about collaborative arts practice and believes whole heartedly in the value of arts and the power of theatre for social change.
Hilary Conroy - Director
Hilary is a disability rights activist, decolonising academic and registered social worker.
She is involved in numerous community-focused activities across the city including York Together and York Disability Rights Forum.
Hilary brings expertise in safeguarding and community collaborations as well as connections to a network of systems changers seeking to make the world we live in better for everyone.
Stephen Wey - Facilitator
Stephen is a state registered occupational therapist with over 35 year experience in working with people with dementia, learning disabilities, children and adults with mental health issues. Much of that time his practice has incorporated dance, music and creative arts, and he has been a part of Moving Minds since its inception.
He is also a senior lecturer in occupational therapy at York St John University and in his teaching, therapy practice and research his passion has been for developing ways of meaningfully connecting with, empowering and enabling people who have dementia and carers. Stephen is a Dementia Friends Ambassador.
Siân Whitley - Facilitator
Siân is a freelance dance practitioner working with people aged 4 to 104, in a variety of settings. She has been part of Moving Minds for three years and delivers most of Moving Minds satellite projects in different hospitals around North Yorkshire.
Siân also works with adults with additional needs delivering sensory drama and dance. She believes that dance and movement transcends barriers, allowing us to connect with other people, but most importantly, ourselves.