A campaigner has criticised plans to reform the rules on restraining and secluding pupils in Northern Ireland’s schools.
Deirdre Shakespeare has led the fight for tougher rules on restraint and seclusion in the province by campaigning for ‘Harry’s Law’.
Harry Shakespeare at the school that prompted his mum Deirdre to launch a campaign to reduce restraint in schools
Shakespeare, from County Tyrone, has said 12-year-old autistic son Harry was strapped to a chair “like an animal” at Knockavoe School & Resource Centre, in Strabane, between September 2016 and May 2017.
Harry’s Law advocated for mandatory recording and reporting of all incidents and the abolition of isolation rooms.
New guidance out for consultation
Northern Ireland’s Department of Education (DoE) has put new guidance on restraint and seclusion out for consultation.
Shakespeare, who has fought for Harry alongside husband Rodney, said while this new guidance delivers on ensuring the recording and reporting of all incidents, it falls short in other ways.
The DoE says the new guidance is “statutory”, which means school staff “must have regard to it”.
It says the use of restraint and seclusion should only ever be a “last resort”.
Restraint is only justified when there is a risk of “harm or injury” and seclusion to prevent “serious physical harm”.
Practices ‘reframed’ as ‘supportive’
But Shakespeare argues that restrictive practices are simply “reframed” in the new guidance as “supportive practices”.
The guidance allows physical contact through supportive practice in order to help with “movement, emotional well-being, feeding and personal care needs”.
But Shakespeare says if families agree to “supportive practice” they are effectively rubber-stamping long-term plans to use restraint and seclusion.
‘No limitations’ on restraint
Shakespeare said the guidance still allows “mechanical restraint”, such as strapping a pupil to a chair if supported by an occupational therapist.
She added that teachers would have “no limitations” on this power. Disabled children were not “misbehaving” when distressed, and the guidance allowed staff to restrain them in order to control behaviours that were rooted in disability, she said.
Autism Eye approached the DoE for comment, but it did not respond.
Related:
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- School pupils ‘suffer broken bones’
- Mum in court move over school restraint
- Legal plan to protect our schoolchildren
- Nine in ten disabled children restrained
- Protest at chill-out room reforms
- Dad demands tougher laws on restraint
- Mum reports school for restraining son
Published: 21 September 2023
