Roger Mitchell

Emotionally Available School​

Profile

Roger doesn’t charge a fee for providing online and face-to-face training or speaking at events…

“Because it’s not about me, It’s about getting the message out there”

But Roger will ask for his travel expenses and subsistence to be covered, if necessary. 

Roger has worked as a teacher in Barking and Dagenham (one of the most deprived boroughs in the UK) since 1988 and has been Headteacher at Ripple Primary School (a 950 pupil school for 3-11 year olds split over 2 sites) since 2005. Ripple Primary School has three Additionally Resourced Provisions for children with SEMH, ASD and CMLD.

Ripple Primary School is an Emotionally Available School where Everyone is Welcome and Everyone Belongs.

Roger has delivered training face-to-face and online locally, nationally and internationally and has served on committees, research groups and working parties for many organisations, including The Royal Society, the ASE, the DfE, the DTI, the STA, the London VRU and the Traveller Movement.

In October 2025 he Co-Chaired and presented the Opening Keynote Speech for the ‘Children’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Conference’ at the World Inclusion Congress in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Roger is a vocal advocate for inclusion and has a breadth and depth of experience and knowledge in supporting children with SEMH needs.

In 2020, Roger was asked by his LA to chair the SEMH Workstream, a group in which he brought together practitioners and commissioners from across education, health, social care and third sector organisations who support children and young people and schools in his borough.

Through this, Roger led on the development of the following free resources:

In 2024, Roger was appointed as a Trustee on the Board at nurtureuk, the leading charity dedicated to improving the social, emotional, mental health and wellbing of children and young people that has been at the forefront of the nurture movement for over 50 years.

Roger is also a Senior Fellow of the IFIP (International Forums of Inclusion Practitioners), a global organisation, with membership drawn from over 130 countries, that provides opportunities to share as well as learn best practices in inclusion.

Roger strongly believes that there is a Moral Imperative to provide inclusive education to all children, especially those whose challenging behaviour places them at a high risk of suspension and exclusion from school. In order to achieve this, he is continually pushing for ALL who work with or on behalf of children and young people to gain a good understanding of Attachment, Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Informed Practice.

But he also believes that, to make a real difference, we need to move from being Trauma Informed to being Trauma Responsive.

This is why his main focus is on empowering as many Emotionally Available Adults as possible in our schools so that we can create truly Emotionally Available Schools for our pupils and their families where everyone has a real sense of belonging.

Because, in his words…

“If you lose the child from their school, you lose the child”