Disability advocates are on the offensive after a national group representing school administrators issued a report supporting the use of restraint and seclusion in schools.
The report released last week from the American Association of School Administrators argues that having the option to utilize restraint or seclusion when students are in danger of harming themselves or others allows schools to include students who would otherwise be institutionalized.
“School administrators and school personnel are not conspiring to harm children. We want to work together with parents to create an environment where all children can learn. These are tools that help us do that job,” said Daniel Domenech, the group’s executive director.
The report includes anecdotes from parents of children with disabilities who insist that their kids would not be able to attend public schools if restraint and seclusion were not available to control outbursts. It also highlights results from a survey of school administrators which found that 30 percent of school districts have had five or more staff members hospitalized in recent years due to student behavioral outbursts.
Restraint and seclusion is highly controversial, however, with a number of disability advocacy groups in addition to the federal government documenting hundreds of cases of allegedly abusive and even deadly uses of the practices in schools. (Read all of Disability Scoop’s coverage of restraint and seclusion »)
Accordingly, the new report advocating the merits of the techniques is yielding significant backlash from disability advocates who have pressed Congress for years to enact federal legislation limiting restraint and seclusion.
In response to the report, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities — a coalition of some 100 disability organizations — is launching a letter writing campaign. They’re urging advocates to contact members of Congress to denounce the findings and encourage support of proposed legislation governing restraint and seclusion in schools.
“While AASA promotes the use of these techniques in ‘emergency’ situations, restraint and seclusion by school personnel are most often used for convenience and punishment, not for emergencies,” the disability advocacy group TASH said in a statement. “Tragically, students die each year in public schools due to restraint and seclusion.”
The report from the “school administrators” reminds me of when the tobacco companies came out and said cigarette smoking was safe. Really, the people who like to use seclusion and restraint are coming out to say they did a survey of the people who use seclusion and restraint and they said “it is safe”…conveniently ignoring YEARS of research to the contrary, the never ending stories in the news about kids who have died or were injured from Seclusion and Restaint and the researched, evidenced based alternatives???
Let’s get real. This is just an sad attempt by this Lobby to stop Senate Bill 2020, the Keeping All Children Safe Act from passing.
The fact is that Seclusion, Restraints and Aversives are NOT evidenced based. The research; however, shows that they are traumatic to children, the children who witness the violence and sometimes even the staff who are engaging in restraining. The United States Mental Health Organization, SAMHSA, recognized that seclusion and restraint are traumatic well over 10 years ago. These educators and school administrators need to start reading the research studies done by our nation’s experts instead of ignoring it. There are plenty of schools who are safely and successfully educating children with behaviors WITHOUT using seclusion and restraint. It is time to move education into the 20th century – read the research, improve education and keep our children safe from the abuse of Seclusion and Restraint.
Many schools are trained in crisis intervention techniques and positive behavior intervention plans. At times the use of physical restraint is warranted, but are schools effectively using the entire gamut of crisis intervention techniques? In addition, are schools designing and implementing useful, concrete positive behavior plans?
In my work with very aggressive and challenging students, schools tend to focus less on the prevention techniques of crisis intervention and more on the physical management portion of the program. While school professionals are trained in crisis intervention techniques, how often do they review these techniques following training? And, is there a team that reviews restraints and offers constructive criticism to professionals working with difficult students?
One program that I worked with, reviewed all restraints and staff injuries. Several common themes emerged from these reviews. First and foremost, staff was injured due to improper use of crisis intervention techniques. Second, adults tend to become very emotionally charged when confronted my student behavior, and feel compelled to “make” the student comply. The old saying of “I’m bigger, tougher and stronger than you” applies here. Third, written positive behavior intervention plans were very vague and lacked clear direction for staff in implementing such a plan. Furthermore, the plan did not prevent, teach or reinforce appropriate behavior of challenging students often enough. Most plans are not positive and tend to be reactionary in nature. A great deal of research indicates that challenging students lack the skills to manage their behaviors; therefore, they need support in learning more appropriate behaviors and communication skills. Fourth, staff was ill prepared to work with the difficult and challenging student. New and inexperienced staff was most likely to be injured, and received very little supervision in working with difficult or challenging students. Finally, while staff receives training, very little practice and follow up occurs after the training. This includes reviewing incidents and ensuring that programs, plans and interventions are implemented with high fidelity. Difficult behaviors can and are reinforced by professionals more often than we want to admit.
Again, there is a time and place for physical management, but more needs to be done in the areas of staff training, follow-up after a restraint, ensuring fidelity of interventions and creating more useful and effective positive behavior intervention plans.
The debate continues, both sides are passionate and each have some valid points. The research is diverse from many fields including healthcare, education and mental health. We encourage people to learn about the issue, read the research and hear a respectful discussion on the topic as part of the ED101 Engauge series.
I M concerned that my experience with schools in this area is not positive, I am severely physically disabled and advocate for children who have multiple challenges I have not see anything positive when seclusion or restraint are used. Injury’s, and deaths can occur when an individual is left alone, or restraint is used, children are left for long periods of time alone and can have seizures, or have other medical needs. They also feel punished for what may have been an escalation of frustration triggered by the attitudes and behaviors of staff & personal. There are better ways to work with us then these methods, learn them, use them!
OUR GRANDSONS TEACHER ASKED US IF THEY COULD DUCT TAPE HIS ARMS TO HIS WHEELCHAIR,HE LIKE TO TEAR UP PAPER.
As a former teacher and nationally certified restraint trainer, districts should have safe, NON-HARMFUL restraint practices in place that are researched to keep students and staff safe. These programs should also have preventative strategies in place to de-escalate students before they become a danger to themselves or others. When schools use these strategies, the number of physical restraints actually go down because they have the tools to control behavior before it escalates. I encourage all schools to use these techniques. Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) is our district’s choice and I have rarely had to use it due to their intensive training on strategies to avoid escalation. No child should ever be in physical danger when these strategies are employed successfully. It’s when they’re not, that students are at risk
The disability community could lead on this issue, instead of being merely reactive. 1) State the appropriate training that staff needs in order to work with students with challenging behavior. 2) State the level and type of review that must occur if restrain or seclusion is implemented. 3) State the type and extent of behavior support plans that must be in place for all students (with and without IEP’s; plenty of non-disabled students end up being restrained/secuuded too). 4) Realize that in any setting where large numbes of children are gathered for 6 hours a day, incidents requiring restraint or seclusion will happen; be prepared to use these techniques in the most benign way possible.
I’m so amazed this stuff still goes on. Its not so much of restraining someone that is having a tantrum. It that having a morbidly obese person laying on a 6 year old and not realizing he is dead. FOLKS. This is about very under qualified (low IQ usually) people taking care of our handicap sometimes low IQ kids. Its like a arena with who comes out on top. Schools will continously take money, higher low IQ people, sometimes very compasionate somtimes not with poor continous training. They will call it a day and we will continue to debate. You cannot call CPS on the schools. I tried it once. They stated you have to call those organizations through the state. or a complaint form one of the many idiotic things school have come up with. Schools are a system. A buisness. They want profit. The fastest way is to make money and run it into the ground. THERE IS NO MONITORING. only parents. and they have lost thier grip. And schools do have money. loads of it. Especially special Ed. from the FEDS. Gee where does it go. sorry for the venting. just tired of stupid stuff.
sincerely,
mother of disabled child.
Restraint and Seclusion! It will be a very bad day if my daughter is ever treated in such an arcane and barbaric way. I will need to be restrained……. What kind of animal could treat a child like that. The schools have no business treating children in this way. Police Officers recieve extensive training in the proper way to restrain a person for their own protection and the protection of the person being restrained. Even with this training things go wrong sometimes. Teachers and school employees cannot possibly be proficient enough to safely restrain these kids. This is not acceptable no matter how you try to sell it.
What’s next? Waterboarding?
I am the parent of a speical needs child who has Hydrocephalus with a VP shunt, Cerebal Palsy on the right side of his body, other hearing and vision issues as well. For the most part he is non-verbal. I don’t feel very comfortable giving these teachers, therapists, teachers aids, counselors, or school personnel the approval or authority to restrain or seclude my non-verbal 5 year old special needs child when its time for their yearly IEP meetings to discuss the goals and services needed to reach those goals and even though you have given them medical documents from (specialists who are PHD’s ) stating that your child would greatly benefit from these services as soon as $$$$$ comes into the picture all of a sudden they want a needs assessment done. Its all of a sudden not necessary. Their therapists will provide those services weather or not they have been trained to do so. If your not going to fight for my child to get the services he needs how can I trust you to do the right thing 100% of the time with my son that means more then life its self to me? My son can not tell me what happened to him at school or if someone hurt him and I am suppose to trust you not to harm my child. To many teachers have already harmed, broken, or killed some of these fragile children that are unable to protect them selves.
One of the things that cannot be legislated is a set of laws that equally affect all children attending school. Accordingly, it is difficult to speak out against restraint for the parent whose child benefits from therapeutic holding, and which intervention may have been the one that kept him/her in school. Likewise, “seclusion” as we term exclusionary timeout, becomes a refuge for the child overwhelmed by environmental stimuli who might choose a safe place to recoup. The letter of the law must match the intent to serve all children effectively, and should be inclusive of therapeutic techniques that may actually benefit some children, but which may inadvertently fall under the terminology of restraint and seclusion. As an advocate for families of children with serious mental health and behavioral concerns, I believe that if restraint works to keep my child out of jail and in school, no other person should impinge on my intervention of choice, even if it is accurately called punishment for the vast majority of children. What I like about IDEA is the concept of team decisionmaking, and the law should not countermand that concept.