What is Behaviour Awareness Week?

Behaviour Awareness Week (BAW) is an annual campaign that takes place during the last week of September, organised by Great Minds Together (GMT). The week was launched with the purpose of fostering awareness and a deeper understanding of behaviour in children and young people, encouraging educators, parents, policymakers, and communities to rethink their approaches to managing behaviour.

At its core, Behaviour Awareness Week promotes the message that behaviour is a form of communication. When a child or young person exhibits challenging behaviour, it is often a sign of an unmet need, an emotional difficulty, or a response to trauma rather than simple defiance or naughtiness. The week challenges systems that rely on punishments and sanctions, encouraging instead a therapeutic approach that seeks to understand the reasons behind behaviour.

When is Behaviour Awareness Week?

Behaviour Awareness Week takes place during the last full week of September each year. In 2026, it runs from Tuesday 22 September to Saturday 26 September.

Why Behaviour Awareness Week Matters

The way society responds to children’s behaviour has a profound impact on their development, mental health, and future outcomes. Traditional approaches to behaviour management in schools and care settings have often relied on punitive measures — detentions, exclusions, isolation rooms, and sanctions-based systems. While these methods may achieve short-term compliance, research consistently shows that they fail to address the underlying causes of behaviour and can actually worsen outcomes for vulnerable children.

Behaviour Awareness Week matters because it challenges this punitive paradigm and advocates for a trauma-informed, therapeutic approach. This means understanding that many children who display challenging behaviour have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect, family breakdown, or bereavement. For these children, punitive responses can retraumatise rather than rehabilitate.

The week is particularly important for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Neurodivergent children, including those with autism, ADHD, and social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) needs, are disproportionately affected by exclusionary behaviour policies. They are more likely to be excluded from school, placed in isolation, or subjected to restraint. Behaviour Awareness Week highlights these disparities and calls for more inclusive, understanding approaches.

School exclusion rates in England have been rising, with permanent exclusions and suspensions increasing significantly in recent years. Many of the children excluded are among the most vulnerable in society — those in care, those with SEND, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. BAW provides a platform to address these trends and advocate for systemic change.

How to Get Involved

Behaviour Awareness Week offers opportunities for educators, parents, policymakers, and community members to engage with the campaign:

• Attend free webinars and events — Great Minds Together hosts webinars and online events during the week, featuring experts in behaviour, trauma-informed practice, and therapeutic education. These are free to attend and open to all.
• Review your school or setting’s behaviour policy — Use the week as a prompt to examine whether your school, care home, or organisation’s behaviour policy is truly therapeutic and inclusive, or whether it relies on punitive measures that may harm vulnerable children.
• Share resources — Great Minds Together provides resources, toolkits, and guidance documents that can be shared with colleagues, governors, and parents. Spreading these materials helps build understanding across communities.
• Start conversations — Talk to colleagues, parents, and young people about what behaviour communicates. Simple conversations can shift perspectives and lead to meaningful change in how behaviour is understood and responded to.
• Support Great Minds Together — Follow Great Minds Together on social media, share their content, and engage with their campaigns throughout the year, not just during BAW.
• Use the hashtag — Share posts, reflections, and resources on social media using #BehaviourAwarenessWeek to help the campaign reach a wider audience.

History

Behaviour Awareness Week was launched by Great Minds Together, a specialist organisation that supports neurodivergent children and young people with complex mental health needs, along with their families and the professional networks around them. Based in the north of England, GMT works with schools, care settings, and residential homes to promote therapeutic and trauma-informed approaches to behaviour.

The campaign was born out of GMT’s experience working with children who had been failed by punitive behaviour systems. Many of the children and young people supported by GMT had experienced multiple school exclusions, placement breakdowns, and escalating mental health difficulties — often exacerbated by behaviour policies that punished rather than supported them.

BAW continues to grow each year as a platform to drive positive change in how schools, care homes, and residential settings perceive and respond to behaviour in young people. The campaign has attracted support from educators, psychologists, social workers, and policymakers who share the vision of a more compassionate, evidence-based approach to behaviour.

Great Minds Together’s broader work includes their Connect service, which provides therapeutic support in community settings, their Statutory Reform Programme working with Integrated Care Boards, and their #Laptops4Learning campaign. Behaviour Awareness Week sits at the heart of their advocacy work, raising the profile of an issue that affects some of the most vulnerable children and young people in society.

Hashtags: #BehaviourAwarenessWeek #BAW2026 #GreatMindsTogether #BehaviourIsCommunication #TraumaInformedPractice

Upcoming Awareness Days

17 JulWorld Day for International Justice 2026

17 JulInternational Firgun Day 2026

17 JulWorld Emoji Day 2026

18 JulFestival Of British Archaeology 2026

18 JulNational Caviar Day 2026

18 JulNelson Mandela International Day 2026