Alan began his career as a civil servant before joining KPMG, the professional services firm, where he worked as an adviser to a wide range of organisations. Latterly he was head of KPMG’s public sector business in the UK and chaired the firm’s public sector practices across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Since retiring from his executive career, Alan has held a number of non-executive and trustee positions: he chaired two NHS trusts (South Tees and York & Scarborough) and a mental health partnership board (for Surrey County Council); he was a board member of the South London and Maudsley mental health trust and chaired the Maudsley Charity when it untied from its NHS host and became an independent charity; he served as a trustee of User Voice, a charity that works with offenders and those at risk of offending; and he was as member of the Charity Commission’s audit and risk committee. Alan lives in York with his wife, Katie, and his two young sons, Luca and Charlie.

Roger Mitchell has worked as a teacher in the London Borough of 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. His school has three Additionally Resourced Provisions that cater for children with SEMH, ASD and CMLD.

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

Roger has delivered training face-to-face and online locally, nationally and internationally and has served on committees and research groups for many organisations, including The Royal Society, the DfE, the DTI, the STA, the London VRU and the Traveller Movement. He has been a Trustee on the board at nurtureuk since September 2024.

A vocal advocate for inclusion, Roger has a breadth and depth of experience and knowledge in supporting children with SEMH needs. He strongly believes that there is a moral imperative to provide inclusive education for 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, schools need to move from being Trauma Informed to being Trauma Responsive. This is why his focus is now 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.”

Kirsty is passionate about the work of nurtureuk and feels privileged to be at the forefront of collaborative decision making which will positively impact the lives of children and young people on a national scale.

In her free time, Kirsty loves to spend time with her family exploring the Yorkshire coast and Northumberland and is also studying for a Masters in Education.

Ian joined the board of nurtureuk in 2024. He is currently employed as Director of Policy, Strategy and Communications for the legal arm of the health service, NHS Resolution. Previously he has worked in a variety of communications and marketing roles, including for the BBC and Capita. He is a former Westminster City Councillor and served as Lord Mayor of Westminster in 2017/18.

Today Ian serves on a number of charity boards concerned with promoting social inclusion and combatting homelessness. He was inspired to become involved in nurtureuk having seen the benefits of targeted support for children and families during his time as Chair of Scrutiny of Children’s Services at Westminster Council.

Jenni is a specialist in consumer research and publishing and has been a member of the leadership team at Which? the UK’s not-for-profit consumer champion, since 2014.  In her current role as Content Director, Jenni oversees Which?’s editorial operation, leading a 160-strong multi-disciplinary team responsible for the independent research, testing and wide-ranging journalism that it publishes across print and digital channels. She also sits on the Board of the International Consumer Research and Testing body, which undertakes joint testing of products for independent consumer organisations around the world.

Jenni has held a wide variety of roles during her career, spanning research, journalism, digital product development and consumer advocacy.  She spent two years as People Director, overseeing all aspects of human resources, including the recruitment and remuneration of non-executive directors and charitable trustees.

Jenni is thrilled to bring her commercial and charitable experience to contribute to the growth of nurtureuk and the impact that it has for children across the UK.

Mehak is an educator, researcher, and systems change practitioner, with exposure to international education systems, including East Africa, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

She is the Education Systems Lead at the RSA, where she oversees the inclusive education portfolio.

Mehak’s background as a secondary mathematics and economics teacher grounds her practice and serves as a daily reminder to hold children and young people at the heart of all that she does, which is why she is thrilled to be part of nurtureuk’s journey towards making nurture available to all children.

Mehak holds a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership from the University College London, a Bachelor of Education from the University of Toronto, and a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the University of British Columbia.

Stuart is a Finance Director at AstraZeneca partnering with 2 late stage Oncology products in the development pipeline. He has been at AstraZeneca for 6 years in a number of different roles. He is a chartered accountant completing his exams in 2013 whilst working in external audit at Deloitte.

Stuart has a wide-ranging background in financial planning and analysis, risk and controls, external audit and management reporting with senior stakeholders. He hopes to utilise this experience to help nurtureuk grow and continue to help as many children as possible.

Mark has been helping nurtureuk to establish and grow for over 15 years. In 2001 he established and ran the charity’s first website, which helped to develop the network and spread materials across the UK and internationally. He ran the website for 5 years, helping to develop the community and strengthen the network. 

In 2001, he and Marion Bennathan co-led the first nationwide nurtureuk meeting. He worked with Marion to gain nurtureuk’s independence from its parent charity, the Association of Workers for Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties. Mark, Marion Bennathan and Paul Cooper signed the foundation documents lodged with the Charity Commission. Mark was on the Board of Trustees from 2001 to 2018 (including six years as Chair), using his entrepreneurial instincts to help the organisation grow. He became nurtureuk‘s Life President in 2018.

Mark values the preventative, intensive and non-stigmatising intervention that nurture groups provide, and has helped to establish two nurture groups in Medway. He has a longstanding professional interest in attachment theory and early intervention, which he studied for his doctorate in educational and child psychology.

Mark works as an educational psychologist, is a visiting Fellow at the University of East London, and director of Real Group (UK) Ltd.