Information That Has To Do with Complaint Against Goader

When I did psychiatric nursing, we sometimes had to restrain violent patients. But these were adults. One violent patient threw me against a wall fifty years ago at Seton Institute, in Baltimore Maryland, and I still have pain in the shoulder that hit the wall.

What we did in the way of restraint was to put the patient in a camisole: it was a canvas device kind of like a short hospital gown. The arms were closed at the hands. The patient put his or her hands down into the closed sleeves (now that was a fun task to achieve if the patient was not feeling docile, which was not often), and we tied the ends of the sleeves behind the patient's back.

I know these devices are needed sometimes. Patients and even children can be real problems and dangers to those around them and themselves. But I think the caretakers need to watch out for sadism creeping in from the Dark Side of all of our psyches. Power over helpless, mentally ill people should be used with discretion and mercy. You should think what you would do if the disturbed adult or child were your child or grandchild.

It looks like to me from his desciption that Goader got no training in this area. The ones in charge just threw him into the environment that required awareness and training. The supervisors started the chain of events by not training a novice participant like Goader. lee

Parents: Special-needs students physically restrained too often
September 14 | Orlando Sentinel



By: Leslie Postal

Claire Lester's behavior was a challenge. She yelled and repeated phrases from movies. When upset, the 12-year-old girl with autism sometimes shoved papers off her desk or waved her arms and kicked her legs toward approaching teachers.

The staff at her Orange County public school responded to her behavior, her father said, by grabbing his 80-pound daughter, forcing her to the ground and then holding her there. This happened 44 times during the 2006-07 school year, according to school records the family shared with the Orlando Sentinel.

She was held once for an hour and, on average, 22 minutes at a time, the records show. At least one incident in her class for children with autism left her back badly bruised, her father, Steve Lester, said.

Lester of Winter Park is one of many parents who want Florida schools to curtail the practice of restraining students with disabilities.
The issue will be taken up at a statewide autism conference in Orlando that begins Monday and has sparked complaints about a proposed rule by the Florida Department of Education that some fear would give a green light to the wider use of the controversial techniques.

Some parents and advocates think the state's most vulnerable kids are restrained too often and argue the practice is a dangerous one that has led to injury and even death.

Orange County school officials would not comment about the Lester case, citing privacy rules. But they said they restrain students with complex behavioral problems only to stop aggression or injury.

Some of their students engage in dangerous and violent behavior hundreds of times a day, repeatedly slapping themselves in the face, for example, or trying to scratch, bite and kick their classmates and instructors.

Teachers trained in proper restraint techniques step in to stop that behavior only after other strategies have failed, they said. The techniques they use usually involve holding the student firmly.

"It's highly controversial all over the country, and we're very careful," said Jonathan McIntire, director of the autism department for Orange County schools. "We never use restraint unless we need to."

Both Claire Lester and her twin sister have autism, and their father realizes that restraint techniques must be used at times to prevent students from hurting themselves or others.

But he was shocked to learn Claire was restrained, in his opinion, for minor problems or when other techniques would have calmed, rather than escalated, her behavior.

"You step back a step. You don't engage her in a half nelson and put her on the ground," said Lester, an oncologist whose daughters, now 14, are in private school this year. "In this day and age? Didn't we quit treating the mentally disabled like that 60 or 70 years ago?"

DOE's proposed rule on "reasonable force" wasn't meant only for students with disabilities, said Pam Stewart, the department's deputy chancellor for educator quality.

It was supposed to formalize guidelines on what teachers should do to control any unruly student.

The complaints about rule 6A-6.05271, however, opened a public window into a simmering issue in special education: the practice of holding students, sometimes prone on the ground.

Alarmed parents and advocates for people with disabilities spoke against the rule at a hearing last month, fearing it would lead to more instances of students being restrained. As a result, the Education Department withdrew the proposed rule Sept. 5 and is working to revise it, Stewart said.

"We were horrified by it," said Bob Jacobs, education-team manager for the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities. "Where it sets the bar is whenever the teacher feels like it."

More kids with autism

Florida's public schools are required to teach students with a wide range of disabilities and have been grappling with how to handle students with severe behavioral and developmental problems.

The challenge has grown more difficult with the surge in the number of students with autism -- a nearly 60 percent hike since 2003.

Parents and advocates concede restraint is needed in such emergencies, but they think Florida kids are restrained too often simply because they're misbehaving or not following instructions.

The advocacy center, which wants the state to do more to curtail the practice, has a current list of about 25 incidents in which restraint techniques left children with bloody lips, bruised arms and damaged emotions.

The issue took center stage in the case of former Seminole County teacher Kathleen Garrett, charged with abusing several children with autism. Her attorney said she used approved restraint techniques. But she was convicted last year of pinning a 60-pound boy to his desk until his lips turned blue.

The Seminole County School Board has been sued by about a dozen parents upset with Garrett's treatment of their children and has already paid out more than $1.9 million.

Some states have curbed the practice in schools and psychiatric hospitals.

Last month, Pennsylvania banned prone restraints -- when someone is held facedown -- on children in its residential-treatment centers because of the risk of injury. The ban was pushed by a father whose son died after being restrained.

'Problem behavior'
Florida has no statewide rule about restraints in public schools.

But last year, the Education Department, acknowledging concern about the practice, urged districts to review what they were doing and find other ways to reduce "problem behavior."

That 2007 paper recommended that districts limit physical restraint to emergencies, provide more training and make sure parents are informed whenever their child is restrained.

Orange officials said they follow those guidelines and have been doing so for years.

But one expert who has studied the issue said restraint is overused. Classroom observations and teacher interviews show restraint is most often used because students are not doing their work or following directions or because they are damaging school property by kicking a desk or tearing a book, said Joe Ryan, an assistant professor of special education at Clemson University.

"A majority of times they [restraint techniques] are used, they are uncalled for," Ryan said.

Though he does not favor a ban on restraint, he thinks states and schools need to find ways to minimize problem behavior and calm situations to make restraint less necessary.

Restraining children is dangerous and often useless because it does little to change youngsters' behavior, he said. The repeated restraint of the same child should serve as a "red flag" to educators that what they are doing isn't working, he added.

Phyllis Musumeci, a Palm Beach County mother, helped organize some of the parents who spoke against the proposed rule at the hearing.

She is slated to speak about restraints Tuesday at the statewide autism conference, convinced they are used too often and to the detriment of students.

Her son, diagnosed with autism and other disorders, was restrained 89 times in his public middle school, she said.

"A lot of these children don't communicate well," she said. "Let's try to figure out what's going on and what they need," she added.

"I'm not saying the teachers and the aides have an easy job, because I know they don't. But what they're doing to children is not right."