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Institutional Abuse Holds Back Positive Change in Children

Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons

This op-ed looks at how schools use abusive restraint and seclusion techniques for managing difficult children and suggests a move towards Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.

“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The little girl likes to take her shoes off. She also has Down Syndrome. Shaylyn Searcy was 8 last year, and at the time was enrolled in Westlake Elementary School in Wayne Township, Ind. As reported by USA Today, someone at the school found a solution to Shaylyn’s “problem” by using duct tape to secure the child’s shoes to her socks and legs. When the bus brought her home she was unable to walk. Her parents carried her off the bus.

Things are not significantly better this year. NPR and ProPublicacollaborated recently on stories highlighting the issue. ProPublica’s piece, “Violent and Legal: The Shocking Ways School Kids are Being Pinned Down, Isolated Against Their Will,” begins with the story of 10-year-old Carson, whose hand was punctured by a bolt and whose foot was broken as staff members attempted to stuff him into the “quiet area.” School officials didn’t seek medical care, but instead called his mother and explained that Carson was being “aggressive.” Actually he was terrified of the seclusion room and resisted going back.

In my experience, a cinder block room outfitted with a metal door and a series of locks has another name. It is a cell. The problem is that these kids aren’t in prison or mental hospitals but in schools, a place where we presume them to be safe.

http://jjie.org/op-ed-discipline-is-not-the-solution-to-affect-positive-change-in-children/107164/

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