A disability rights campaigner is planning a legal move to protect special needs children from restraint and isolation in schools.
Beth Morrison, from Monifieth in Angus, is to mount a judicial review. She is spearheading the action because 682 UK families with special needs children contacted her after experiencing restraint or seclusion in school.
Beth Morrison is planning a judicial review to reduce restraint and seclusion
Morrison is crowdfunding the move over government failure to provide an “adequate policy framework” to regulate the restraint and seclusion of children with disabilities.
‘Fundamental failure’
She said the move is designed to hold Westminster Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds) to account over a “fundamental failure to protect vulnerable children”.
Moves are already underway to bring a judicial review in Northern Ireland.
In 2017, after seven years of campaigning, Morrison persuaded the Scottish Government to publish guidance on restraint in schools.
But she says the other UK nations have no guidance to protect vulnerable children.
Unexplained bruising
Morrison, 53, started her campaign in Scotland in 2010. She took the action after her son, then 11 years old, returned home from school with unexplained bruising. He has epilepsy, cerebral palsy, autism and learning disabilities.
She said: “It has to be done because there’s too many children being emotionally and physically harmed due to restraint and seclusion.”
Morrison, who leads charity Positive and Active Behaviour Support Scotland (PABSS), needs £7,500 to cover legal costs.
Nine in ten special needs children experienced restraint
Research last month by PABSS and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation found nearly nine in every ten (88%) families with learning disabled children said they had experienced restraint.
The Department for Education said it consulted on new advice last year to reduce restraint for “young people in health and social care services as well as specialist education settings”.
To visit Morrison’s Crowd Justice donation page, click here.
Related:
- Nine in ten disabled children restrained
- Protest at chill-out room reforms
- Scots take seclusion fight to parliament
Published: 27 February 2019
