Children forced into cell-like school seclusion rooms - CNN -
>EDMOND, Okla. -- The Edmond School District is showing Eyewitness News 5 camera crews the seclusion rooms in schools that have become the center of a lawsuit.
The parents of Noah Ashford, 11, and their attorney said Noah was locked in one of the rooms and abused"This room is a small closet basically that they've turned into a form of punishment," said attorney Angela Smith.
The family said that Noah, a special-needs student, attended Centennial and Orvis Risner elementary schools in Edmond and was locked inside seclusion rooms in both.
(This is just a regular classroom," said Randy Decker of the Edmond School District. "Students with different needs would be in here.")
He said that special-needs students require special care. He said that's why special-needs classrooms have two areas where children can calm down.
"(One) is just kind of a seclusion or isolation area. It's not in a different room," Decker said. "As you can tell, it's blocked off a little bit. They can go in and sit down and do their work there."
(Ashford's family said Noah was mistreated and locked in one of the seclusion rooms for an extended period of time.)
(Decker said the room is automatically unlocked and a student could push the door open from the inside. He said that if a child seems violent or continues to act out, a teacher can push a red button that will keep the door locked as long as the teacher's hand is there.)
He said that the district sees the rooms as a good way to maintain a safe classroom environment for all the students and the rooms are allowed under the law. Decker said every time a student is placed in one of the rooms, the teacher has to fill out a form to document it.
Decker was not able to answer whether parents of special-needs students find out about the rooms when their child enrolls.
www.publicbroadcasting.net/.../State.School.Board.Bans.Seclusion.Rooms - You Can View The U-Tube At http://www.koco.com/r/24102603/detail.html
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Wisconsin.
By Chelsea Lawliss
Monday, April 12, 2010
In 2006, a 7-year-old girl was fatally injured at Rice Lake Day Treatment Clinic in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. A staff member held her in a prone position for an extended period of time after being put into a “cool down” room for refusing to stop blowing bubbles in her milk. A person several times her size held her facedown on the floor as a consequence for blowing bubbles. A medical examiner determined that she died from “complications due to chest compression asphyxiation.”
This is an extreme case of the misuse of seclusion rooms and restraints, but it is one that is not uncommon. This horrific story is only one of many that I came across when doing research about the debate about the use of seclusion rooms and restraints in an education setting. Each story was more awful than the one before it. Many children, especially those with disabilities, are being subjected to physically and emotionally damaging treatments because some teachers are not equipped with the necessary training and tools in which to establish the best learning environment for all of their students.
After reading Hannah Shtein’s March 12 column, “Address growing special ed needs” and Geoff Jara-Almonte’s March 16 column, “Student seclusion sometimes necessary,” I felt compelled to offer another viewpoint — that of a professional.
Professor Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, Interim Associate Dean for Undergraduate and Teacher Education and a distinguished scholar of special education, made her opinions clear at the onset of our interview: seclusion rooms, in the way they are currently being used, are wrong. This is not a statement based on biased opinions, but rather founded on her research and education on the causes and effects of punishment.
Nowhere in The Cap Times’ March 11 article, “Should schools use seclusion rooms, restraints?” was there mention of what the proper use of a seclusion room is. The focus, instead, was placed on “educators using these methods only as a last resort to keep children and staff safe.” According to professor Hanley-Maxwell, this focus is misdirected.
While the use of seclusion rooms is intended to keep students and others safe, the focus of this form of punishment should be more centered on how to modify a certain behavior and then reinforce subsequent positive behavior.
An important concept to understand is the relationship between punishment and reinforcement. According to LDonLine, the world’s leading website on learning disabilities and ADHD, “punishments are consequences that weaken behavior and reinforcers are consequences that strengthen behavior.” For behavior to be managed with consequences, there is a specific process that needs to be followed every time.
The problem must be defined in a way that is understood by the child. There needs to be a strategy designed to change the behavior and then an effective reinforcer needs to be identified and applied consistently to change the behavior.
*The reports of the misuse of seclusion rooms across the country are blatant proof of the lack of understanding of this process. To be clear, punishment that is used in an aggressive, cruel manner or overused will most likely provoke unexpected behavior that can be seen as emotional, destructive or just “another problem” to be dealt with.
Hanley-Maxwell said, “Without a positive incentive and environment to come back to, time spent in a seclusion room will be more detrimental than positive to a child’s emotional and physical well-being.”
http://badgerherald.com/oped/2010/04/12/seclusion_rooms_over.php
--------------------
NOTE>Mar 11, 2010 ... About two-thirds of Madison's public schools now use seclusion rooms; most also have teams of staff trained to use physical force to hustle ...
host.madison.com/.../article_1b3c4886-2bc8-11df-bd32-001cc4c03286.html -
-----------------------------
Showing posts with label Children Being Abused. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Children Being Abused. Show all posts
Monday, January 17, 2011
Jonathan King was 13 when he hanged himself inside a “seclusion room”
Dec 17, 2008 Jonathan King was 13 when he hanged himself inside a “seclusion room” at a Gainesville school for special needs children in 2004.
The unfurnished, 8-foot-by-8-foot room at the Alpine Psychoeducational Program was used for dealing with unruly children. The Kings say they never saw the room until his death and claim school officials kept them in the dark about its being used.
articles.cnn.com/.../seclusion.rooms_1_seclusion-autistic-children-special-education?_.
--------------------------------
Children Put In Seclusion Rooms (Locked From The Out Side & The Window Covered With Paper)
A report published earlier last year by the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) provided
additional examples, including one in which a 7-year-old Wisconsin girl, who was diagnosed with an
emotional disturbance and ADHD, died of suffocation after several adult staff pinned her to the
floor in a “prone restraint” because she was blowing bubbles in her milk.
A handful of earlier accounts also exposed the widespread use in schools of “seclusion rooms” or
“time-out rooms”–basically, solitary confinement cells for difficult-to-control children. Mary Hallowell
wrote about one such case in her 2009 book Forgotten Rooms. According to an article the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution:
Education researcher Mary Hollowell spent months chronicling an alternative high school in rural
Georgia before she discovered the awful secret that continues to haunt her today. Walking with the
principal down a hall, Hollowell heard a loud pounding. She followed the principal into a room and
then through a connecting doorway that led to a solitary confinement cell double bolted from the
outside.
“The cell was dark inside and had a small, square window,” she said. “It was the kind of set-up you
saw in a mental institution, not a school.” Inside the cell was a boy Hollowell recognized; she had
tutored him in reading and even had artwork from him. “I felt like I had been punched in the stomach
when I realized what I was seeing,” she says. “The principal’s comment to me was that most people
didn’t know this room was there.”
*As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported: “Seclusion rooms are allowed in Georgia public
schools provided they are big enough for children to lie down, have good visibility and have locks
that spring open in case of an emergency such as a fire. In 2004, Jonathan King, 13, hanged himself in
one such room, a stark, 8-foot-by-8-foot ‘timeout’ room in a Gainesville public school.” Jonathan was
also a special ed student, who had ADHD and depression. He had talked about suicide to the
school psychologist, but she concluded it was “an escape or attention-getting technique,” according
to the Gainesville Times. A civil rights lawsuit brought by his parents was thrown out of federal court.
These are the sorts of abuses that H.R. 4247 seeks to address. And the pressing need for federal
legislation is clear from the GAO report: ”GAO found no federal laws restricting the use of
seclusion and restraints in public and private schools and widely divergent laws at the state level,”
it said. In addition, “GAO could not find a single Web site, federal agency, or other entity that
collects information on the use of these methods or the extent of their alleged abuse.”
Yet 153 members of Congress chose to vote against a law that would expose and limit what can in
some cases only be described as the torture of schoolchildren.
Perhaps not so shocking after all: In a country that condones torture not only in its military detention
centers, but in its state and federal prisons, immigration jails, and juvenile detention centers, it was
only a matter of time before it trickled down, even into our schools.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
School Seclusion Rooms Outrage Parents | NBC PhiladelphiaJul 28, 2009 ... Emotions ran high after austic children were placed in seclusion rooms at a West Chester school. Now parents want answers as to why ...
www.nbcphiladelphia.com/.../School_Seclusion_Rooms_Outrage_Parents_Philadelphia.html -
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(WABE: State School Board Bans Seclusion Rooms (2010-07-09)Jul 9, 2010 ... ATLANTA, GA (WABE) - The Georgia School Board has banned the use of "seclusion rooms" for students with behavior problems. )...
The unfurnished, 8-foot-by-8-foot room at the Alpine Psychoeducational Program was used for dealing with unruly children. The Kings say they never saw the room until his death and claim school officials kept them in the dark about its being used.
articles.cnn.com/.../seclusion.rooms_1_seclusion-autistic-children-special-education?_.
--------------------------------
Children Put In Seclusion Rooms (Locked From The Out Side & The Window Covered With Paper)
A report published earlier last year by the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) provided
additional examples, including one in which a 7-year-old Wisconsin girl, who was diagnosed with an
emotional disturbance and ADHD, died of suffocation after several adult staff pinned her to the
floor in a “prone restraint” because she was blowing bubbles in her milk.
A handful of earlier accounts also exposed the widespread use in schools of “seclusion rooms” or
“time-out rooms”–basically, solitary confinement cells for difficult-to-control children. Mary Hallowell
wrote about one such case in her 2009 book Forgotten Rooms. According to an article the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution:
Education researcher Mary Hollowell spent months chronicling an alternative high school in rural
Georgia before she discovered the awful secret that continues to haunt her today. Walking with the
principal down a hall, Hollowell heard a loud pounding. She followed the principal into a room and
then through a connecting doorway that led to a solitary confinement cell double bolted from the
outside.
“The cell was dark inside and had a small, square window,” she said. “It was the kind of set-up you
saw in a mental institution, not a school.” Inside the cell was a boy Hollowell recognized; she had
tutored him in reading and even had artwork from him. “I felt like I had been punched in the stomach
when I realized what I was seeing,” she says. “The principal’s comment to me was that most people
didn’t know this room was there.”
*As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported: “Seclusion rooms are allowed in Georgia public
schools provided they are big enough for children to lie down, have good visibility and have locks
that spring open in case of an emergency such as a fire. In 2004, Jonathan King, 13, hanged himself in
one such room, a stark, 8-foot-by-8-foot ‘timeout’ room in a Gainesville public school.” Jonathan was
also a special ed student, who had ADHD and depression. He had talked about suicide to the
school psychologist, but she concluded it was “an escape or attention-getting technique,” according
to the Gainesville Times. A civil rights lawsuit brought by his parents was thrown out of federal court.
These are the sorts of abuses that H.R. 4247 seeks to address. And the pressing need for federal
legislation is clear from the GAO report: ”GAO found no federal laws restricting the use of
seclusion and restraints in public and private schools and widely divergent laws at the state level,”
it said. In addition, “GAO could not find a single Web site, federal agency, or other entity that
collects information on the use of these methods or the extent of their alleged abuse.”
Yet 153 members of Congress chose to vote against a law that would expose and limit what can in
some cases only be described as the torture of schoolchildren.
Perhaps not so shocking after all: In a country that condones torture not only in its military detention
centers, but in its state and federal prisons, immigration jails, and juvenile detention centers, it was
only a matter of time before it trickled down, even into our schools.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
School Seclusion Rooms Outrage Parents | NBC PhiladelphiaJul 28, 2009 ... Emotions ran high after austic children were placed in seclusion rooms at a West Chester school. Now parents want answers as to why ...
www.nbcphiladelphia.com/.../School_Seclusion_Rooms_Outrage_Parents_Philadelphia.html -
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(WABE: State School Board Bans Seclusion Rooms (2010-07-09)Jul 9, 2010 ... ATLANTA, GA (WABE) - The Georgia School Board has banned the use of "seclusion rooms" for students with behavior problems. )...
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Restraints And Seclusion
Nationwide, since 1993, at least 64 children died and thousands were injured while being restrained in face-down and other methods. About half of the restraints that caused deaths were unnecessary, a review of restraint deaths by Cornell University Residential Child Care Project found.
Cornell's trainers, who have worked with Parmadale, teach both the face-up and facedown techniques as a part of their Therapeutic Crisis Intervention system but warn neither is safe. Facilities choose which methods suit their philosophy. Some choose never to use restraints.
"Every single restraint assumes a certain level of risk, including death," said Michael Nunno, the project's principal investigator. "You never want your intervention to be more risky than what the child is doing."
According to the coroner's ruling, Faith was restrained after an "outburst of disruptive behavior."
Faith had been tossing things around her room and may have approached the staff aggressively, said Parma police and Parmadale officials.
That type of behavior alone is not enough to restrain a child, Nunno said.
Workers often get into power struggles with kids they supervise, especially if the atmosphere in the facility is chaotic. Staff involved in such struggles should remove themselves from dealing with the children, he said.
According to police records and other sources, the situation in Parmadale's Cottage 14, where Faith lived, was particularly tense.
In the days leading up to her restraint, several children escaped, one stole a car, a child-care worker was injured by a teen and -- just before Faith died -- another girl in the cottage was beaten so badly, she was taken to the hospital.
People can be trained and tested over and over, Mullen said, but in the heat of a situation, it's hard to maintain control of an agitated child who is struggling with staff.
"What people need to understand is that these are interactions between humans," he said.
Bellefaire JCB in Shaker Heights, which also treats troubled children, uses restraint as a last resort, said Jeffrey Cox, clinical director.
"For us, disruptive is not enough," he said. If a child were to punch a staff member and walk away, that would not be a restraint situation because the immediate danger would be over, he said.
When restraints are used, the child's vital signs are carefully monitored, and children are not left alone immediately after being restrained, Cox said.
Faith was allowed to rest on the floor after she was released from the restraint, and workers later discovered her breathing was shallow. Parmadale staff lacked access to life-saving measures such as an automatic defibrillator to try to restart her heart.
The number of restraint-related injuries in Ohio is unclear because no agency collects the data. Information about major incidents, such as deaths or serious injuries, is supposed to be reported to the agency or agencies that license a facility. But that information is not shared.
In 2006, the Ohio Association of County Behavioral Health Authorities, an umbrella group that includes county mental health boards, pleaded for the creation of a statewide system to report child injuries in facilities.
The report pointed out that thousands of restraint-related injuries each year, including rug burns, black eyes, bloody noses and broken teeth, are not required to be reported. It concluded that fear of liability and the potential of losing facilities, which are already in short supply, were reasons that reforms were not being pushed.
"We tinker around the edges, but nobody is biting the bullet and fixing this problem," Cheri Walter, CEO of the group, said at the time.
Asked this week if any changes had been made since the 2006 paper was printed, Walter said, "Frankly, nothing has changed."
But now, officials are facing the death of a 17-year-old.
"It's unfortunately taken kids' deaths to prompt these kinds of changes," Nunno said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBS 5 Investigates: School 'Quiet Rooms' Continue Advocates Push For Restraint And Seclusion Law Changes
http://cbs5.com/investigates/Quiet.Rooms.kids.2.898717.html (Click on the link to watch the video)
Reporting Anna Werner
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ― Holding school kids down to the floor or closing them in so-called "quiet rooms" are practices advocates say can have dangers for the children and should be reduced or even eliminated.
But they're still allowed under California law, despite those advocates' efforts.
Naomi Liron says of her son, "He came home with three big pinch marks on his arm."
Liron says her 11-year-old son Reuben sustained injuries at school, like bruises on an arm, a rug burn on his face and emotional pain.
"He was depressed, very anxious and very depressed," says Liron.
Diagnosed with conditions including bipolar disorder and ADHD, Reuben attended the private Lincoln Child Center in Oakland, a school for children with special educational needs, for five years.
But his mother says it wasn't until earlier this year that she reallyunderstood what was happening with Reuben.
"I cried, when I read the incident reports," Liron said.
Those incident reports show how center staff at times restrained Reuben on the floor, in one report, holding him down for "ten minutes" after he misbehaved.
And on other occasions, how staff closed him into the "quiet room", where they noted he was "banging" and "ramming his body against the door."
In one report, a therapist wrote that he pleaded with her before being put in the room, "I love you, don't leave me, don't hurt me."
His mom says, "That's the one I cried the most about, because he's so desperate, and he's so scared."
Lincoln Child Center declined an on-camera interview about the case, citing confidentiality. In a statement, it says its ultimate goal is to keep children safe.
And under California law, restraining and even keeping children in those quiet rooms can be legal.
Which is why attorney Maggie Roberts, with Disability Rights California says, "I have great concerns."
Roberts is working on Reuben's case for Disability Rights California (formerly Protection and Advocacy).
According to Roberts, "They are reporting things that show that a child is very traumatized, and yet they continue to do it."
And a CBS5 investigation found similar incidents reported in schools across California and around the nation, in both public and private schools. Children have been locked in closets, or restrained, one even tied down with duct tape.
So last year, Roberts' group tried to change California law to limit those practices, and eliminate seclusion entirely. But Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to sign the bill authored by Senator Sheila Kuehl.
The governor said the bill could stop school employees "from intervening in an emergency and place more students at risk."
But disability rights' Leslie Morrison says:
"By vetoing the bill and allowing these practices to continue we have put teachers and students at great risk."
Morrison says her group is looking into still more cases even now, like that of a 12 year old girl held repeatedly in asmall room with bare walls and no windows in San Diego and an injury sustained by a 9 year old boy on his backside, after being dragged by a classroom aide in a district north of Los Angeles.
http://www.caica.org/RESTRAINT_AND_SECLUSION_CAICA.htm
Cornell's trainers, who have worked with Parmadale, teach both the face-up and facedown techniques as a part of their Therapeutic Crisis Intervention system but warn neither is safe. Facilities choose which methods suit their philosophy. Some choose never to use restraints.
"Every single restraint assumes a certain level of risk, including death," said Michael Nunno, the project's principal investigator. "You never want your intervention to be more risky than what the child is doing."
According to the coroner's ruling, Faith was restrained after an "outburst of disruptive behavior."
Faith had been tossing things around her room and may have approached the staff aggressively, said Parma police and Parmadale officials.
That type of behavior alone is not enough to restrain a child, Nunno said.
Workers often get into power struggles with kids they supervise, especially if the atmosphere in the facility is chaotic. Staff involved in such struggles should remove themselves from dealing with the children, he said.
According to police records and other sources, the situation in Parmadale's Cottage 14, where Faith lived, was particularly tense.
In the days leading up to her restraint, several children escaped, one stole a car, a child-care worker was injured by a teen and -- just before Faith died -- another girl in the cottage was beaten so badly, she was taken to the hospital.
People can be trained and tested over and over, Mullen said, but in the heat of a situation, it's hard to maintain control of an agitated child who is struggling with staff.
"What people need to understand is that these are interactions between humans," he said.
Bellefaire JCB in Shaker Heights, which also treats troubled children, uses restraint as a last resort, said Jeffrey Cox, clinical director.
"For us, disruptive is not enough," he said. If a child were to punch a staff member and walk away, that would not be a restraint situation because the immediate danger would be over, he said.
When restraints are used, the child's vital signs are carefully monitored, and children are not left alone immediately after being restrained, Cox said.
Faith was allowed to rest on the floor after she was released from the restraint, and workers later discovered her breathing was shallow. Parmadale staff lacked access to life-saving measures such as an automatic defibrillator to try to restart her heart.
The number of restraint-related injuries in Ohio is unclear because no agency collects the data. Information about major incidents, such as deaths or serious injuries, is supposed to be reported to the agency or agencies that license a facility. But that information is not shared.
In 2006, the Ohio Association of County Behavioral Health Authorities, an umbrella group that includes county mental health boards, pleaded for the creation of a statewide system to report child injuries in facilities.
The report pointed out that thousands of restraint-related injuries each year, including rug burns, black eyes, bloody noses and broken teeth, are not required to be reported. It concluded that fear of liability and the potential of losing facilities, which are already in short supply, were reasons that reforms were not being pushed.
"We tinker around the edges, but nobody is biting the bullet and fixing this problem," Cheri Walter, CEO of the group, said at the time.
Asked this week if any changes had been made since the 2006 paper was printed, Walter said, "Frankly, nothing has changed."
But now, officials are facing the death of a 17-year-old.
"It's unfortunately taken kids' deaths to prompt these kinds of changes," Nunno said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBS 5 Investigates: School 'Quiet Rooms' Continue Advocates Push For Restraint And Seclusion Law Changes
http://cbs5.com/investigates/Quiet.Rooms.kids.2.898717.html (Click on the link to watch the video)
Reporting Anna Werner
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ― Holding school kids down to the floor or closing them in so-called "quiet rooms" are practices advocates say can have dangers for the children and should be reduced or even eliminated.
But they're still allowed under California law, despite those advocates' efforts.
Naomi Liron says of her son, "He came home with three big pinch marks on his arm."
Liron says her 11-year-old son Reuben sustained injuries at school, like bruises on an arm, a rug burn on his face and emotional pain.
"He was depressed, very anxious and very depressed," says Liron.
Diagnosed with conditions including bipolar disorder and ADHD, Reuben attended the private Lincoln Child Center in Oakland, a school for children with special educational needs, for five years.
But his mother says it wasn't until earlier this year that she reallyunderstood what was happening with Reuben.
"I cried, when I read the incident reports," Liron said.
Those incident reports show how center staff at times restrained Reuben on the floor, in one report, holding him down for "ten minutes" after he misbehaved.
And on other occasions, how staff closed him into the "quiet room", where they noted he was "banging" and "ramming his body against the door."
In one report, a therapist wrote that he pleaded with her before being put in the room, "I love you, don't leave me, don't hurt me."
His mom says, "That's the one I cried the most about, because he's so desperate, and he's so scared."
Lincoln Child Center declined an on-camera interview about the case, citing confidentiality. In a statement, it says its ultimate goal is to keep children safe.
And under California law, restraining and even keeping children in those quiet rooms can be legal.
Which is why attorney Maggie Roberts, with Disability Rights California says, "I have great concerns."
Roberts is working on Reuben's case for Disability Rights California (formerly Protection and Advocacy).
According to Roberts, "They are reporting things that show that a child is very traumatized, and yet they continue to do it."
And a CBS5 investigation found similar incidents reported in schools across California and around the nation, in both public and private schools. Children have been locked in closets, or restrained, one even tied down with duct tape.
So last year, Roberts' group tried to change California law to limit those practices, and eliminate seclusion entirely. But Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to sign the bill authored by Senator Sheila Kuehl.
The governor said the bill could stop school employees "from intervening in an emergency and place more students at risk."
But disability rights' Leslie Morrison says:
"By vetoing the bill and allowing these practices to continue we have put teachers and students at great risk."
Morrison says her group is looking into still more cases even now, like that of a 12 year old girl held repeatedly in asmall room with bare walls and no windows in San Diego and an injury sustained by a 9 year old boy on his backside, after being dragged by a classroom aide in a district north of Los Angeles.
http://www.caica.org/RESTRAINT_AND_SECLUSION_CAICA.htm
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