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The Secret Carer
Features Writer
@TheSecretCarer
10:49 AM 26th November 2020
family

‘Why Do They Hurt?’ – Give Our Vulnerable Children A Voice

 
Did you know that in the UK, there is no legal requirement for schools to tell you if they have restrained or secluded your child? Children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are disproportionately affected by restraint and seclusion in schools. By nature of their learning disability, SEND children’s voices aren’t being heard or, when they are, they are not regarded as ‘reliable witnesses’. Extraordinarily, children are less protected in schools than they are in any other setting.

A recent report on this, Reducing Restrictive Intervention of Children and Young People, will open your eyes to something which has been hidden for far too long. Schools need to be far more accountable for their actions.

The report shares the shocking accounts of children’s experiences of restrictive intervention gathered through a survey of parents and carers alongside individual case studies. The aim of the report’s authors is to reduce restrictive interventions and safeguard children (Rrisc).

As a consequence of this report, the Equality and Human Rights Commission is undertaking a Statutory Inquiry under section 16 and schedule 2 of the Equality Act 2006 into the monitoring and analysis of the use of restraint on children in schools. Beth Morrison from Positive & Active Behaviour Support Scotland (PABSS), and the International Coalition Against Restraint in Schools (ICARS), who have campaigned against the use of disproportionate and inappropriate restraint and seclusion in schools for over 10 years, are collecting evidence under the terms of reference to inform this inquiry.

If your child or someone you know has experienced any type of restrictive intervention please, please help the Inquiry by participating in this survey and following this link.


What are Restraint, Seclusion and Restrictive practices?

Sketch by Becky Whinnerah
Sketch by Becky Whinnerah
Restrictive intervention with children can include:
Physical restraint: direct physical contact with a child to restrain them or restrict their movement or actions. This can include pinning a child to the floor.
Seclusion: isolating a child in a room away from others and preventing the child from leaving;
Mechanical restraint: using equipment or materials to restrict or prevent movement;
Blanket restrictions: denying a child access to certain places or activities;
Chemical restraint: using drugs and medication to alter a child’s behaviour.

The consequences of restrictive intervention

This survey is personally extremely important to me and to hundreds of other families in the UK because our children have been subjected to frequent and increasingly severe episodes of restraint and seclusion without our knowledge. In my child’s case, it was only after he had been made to leave the school permanently – illegally, but that’s another story! – that I found out what had been happening to him. After making a Subject Access Request (SAR) to view all of his school records, I uncovered the true extent and frequency of the restrictive practices that had been used against him. Despite my son having severe complex epilepsy, including photosensitivity and reflex seizures triggered by extreme anxiety or a heightened emotional state, there is no evidence that the school sought any medical advice before employing restraint and seclusion.

Unfortunately, children such as my son have been physically hurt and emotionally traumatised by their period of restraint and seclusion. Suspect bruises across his ankles and other parts of his body and a large red mark on his back, with broken skin and extensive bruising - which we had assumed to be accidental - became of far more questionable origin once we had read the information from the SAR.

Hurt, traumatised and needing psychological help

As a result of the restraint and seclusion deployed on my son, he developed a new and extremely distressing seizure type, and lost interest in everything in his life, even the toy trains he loved. He stopped eating and lost 20% of his body weight. He became persistently anxious and would not want to stay in one place, wishing to spend all his waking moments travelling around and only returning home to go straight to bed and sleep (sometimes at 4.30 in the afternoon). He was extremely depressed and anxious all the time, physically weak and having hundreds of focal awareness impaired seizures a week. Not only was my son mentally damaged, but also as parents we were struggling to cope with the enormous strain of seeing our son suffer both mentally and physically but being able to do little about it. A year and a half later, he is improved but still not fully recovered, though another school is helping to heal the harm he suffered. The original school that employed restraint and seclusion on my son insisted they were acting in his best interests. They were not. And unlike us, they have not had to live with the consequences of their actions.

‘Why do they hurt’ A short film about children’s experiences of restraint



Accountability

What is extremely worrying is that despite there being a means of complaint, parental case studies show that parents and children are rarely listened to and there is little or no accountability for the school concerned. And once your child has been excluded or removed from the school, you no longer have a legal right to complain to Ofsted: your child is not at that school any more so it is nothing to do with you! As a result, ‘Outstanding’ schools who practice questionable restrictive practices remain within this designation. This has to change. Schools must be held accountable for their actions because only by doing so will they look at their procedures and start to adopt better and more positive behaviour support strategies.

The Rrics Report makes four recommendations

Strengthen the law across the UK to safeguard children from restrictive interventions and to prosecute those who use unlawful force against children.
Invest in early intervention, prevention and training in order to support both families and staff to use evidence-based approaches to address challenging behaviour as set out in NICE guidance.
Gather more evidence about what is happening and strengthen safeguarding and accountability.
Fund psychological and trauma support for children and families who require support following restrictive interventions.

Please help make this happen. If your child has been subjected to restrictive practices, you need to help inform the Inquiry of your families lived experience and fill out the survey) as soon as possible.

Any answers you provide will be completely anonymised. 

Please share it with any others you know whose children may have been affected.  The more evidence that can be collected, the better informed the Inquiry will be, and the nearer we are to creating change. Thank you.

The actual survey closes on the 30th November but if you miss this deadline you can still inform those running the survey by emailing EHRCSurvey2020@pabss.org