Two Maine parents of children with disabilities have produced a series of six videos to help educate parents about appropriate and incorrect uses of restraint and seclusion in educational settings in Maine.
Jodie Hall, a 2017-2018 family trainee in the New Hampshire-Maine Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (NH-ME LEND) Program, recently completed a 70-hour community leadership placement with the Maine Coalition Against Restraint and Seclusion (C.A.R.S.). Hall worked closely with Deb Davis, a Coalition member who is also a non-attorney special education advocate. Both Hall and Davis are parents of children with disabilities who experienced incidents of restraint in school settings. In 2011, Ms. Davis was invited by the Maine Commissioner of Education to serve on the Consensus Based Rulemaking Team that was revising the rule governing physical restraint and seclusion in the state.
Hall and Davis' collaboration led to the development of the educational video series: Parents Engaged in Policy: A Six-Part Conversation About Restraint and Seclusion in Maine. Their goals of this video series are to: 1) educate parents about appropriate and incorrect uses of restraint and seclusion; 2) teach parents to work collaboratively with schools to ensure their child’s behavior is being appropriately understood; 3) highlight the importance of exploring the function or meaning of behavior in order to respond in less restrictive alternatives; 4) provide resources which teach preventative strategies and alternative approaches and support a reduction in the use of restraint and seclusion; and 6) once an incident of restraint or seclusion has occurred, provide families with information to engage effectively in the debriefing process with the school and make the necessary adjustments to prevent restraint and seclusion from occurring again.
For more information visit the UMaine Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies.
The NH-ME LEND Program does not endorse the use of restraints or seclusion for any child in any setting to control behavior short of prevention of immediate harm or death. The use of restraint and seclusion for children with challenging behaviors represents failure in meeting properly the needs of children with behavioral challenges. Moreover such techniques are ineffective in changing behaviors over the longer term and are harmful.
NH-ME LEND Program does support the mission of the Alliance to Prevent Restraint, Aversive Interventions and Seclusion (APRAIS) (which is supported by many organizations including AUCD). APRAIS’s mission statement is “to seek the elimination of the use of aversive interventions, restraint and seclusion to respond to or control the behavior of children and youth”. The Association of University Centers on Disability also supports this Alliance.
NH-ME LEND Program does support positive alternatives to supporting children with challenging behaviors.
- John Moeschler, MD, MS , NH-ME LEND Director
