The Boxall Profile® is an invaluable resource for the assessment of children and young people’s social, emotional and behavioural development. It provides educators with a precise picture of a pupil’s strengths, as well as difficulties which could affect their learning. The Boxall Profile® is used by over half of UK schools that assess their pupils’ mental health.
How can the Boxall Profile® help children and young people’s social, emotional and mental health?
Children and young people facing social, emotional or mental health challenges often struggle to engage with mainstream education. They may be withdrawn and isolated, or display hugely challenging and disruptive behaviour that significantly affects those around them. One of the Six Principles of Nurture is that all behaviour is communication and so disruptive behaviour at school is a child’s way of communicating that they have unmet needs.
The Boxall Profile® is a way of understanding what lies behind pupils’ challenging behaviour to detect any unmet social, emotional and mental health needs. Once social and emotional needs are identified, education professionals can put in place targeted support to help children and young people develop those skills, and this in turn will help to improve their behaviour, mental health and wellbeing.
By using the Boxall Profile®, teachers can adopt the following strategies to help improve children and young people’s social, emotional and mental health:
- Giving pupils the opportunity to practise their social and emotional skills – for example by encouraging them to work in pairs and groups.
- Making time for social-emotional learning, either during targeted PSHE lessons or by embedding it throughout the curriculum.
- Modelling good social and emotional skills themselves, when interacting with pupils and other staff members.
The Boxall Profile® allows teachers to develop an inclusive, whole class approach that enables them to access all their pupils, by removing individual barriers to learning.
Boxall Profile® and the graduated approach to nurture
Our graduated approach to nurture ensures that every child in a school has the opportunity to flourish in their education. It ensures that every child has access to the support they need, when they need it. We work to measure and support the social, emotional and mental health of all children using the Boxall Profile®, so no child falls through the cracks.
The Boxall Profile® is an essential part of the graduated nurture approach and sits across all tiers of the nurture pyramid. The Boxall Profile® is crucial to determine what level of support the pupil needs to receive: whether the child will require access to a targeted intervention such as a nurture group, or whether other nurturing interventions such as attending a lunch time group/ afternoon club may be sufficient.
We recommend that all schools and educational settings identify the social, emotional and mental health needs of all their pupils using the Boxall Profile®, to ensure that all needs are recognised and can be supported through early interventions.
To get started or for more information about the Boxall Profile®, please take a look at our website.