Children implore staff to avoid using restraint

The report is based on the views of more than 90 young people from across England, who all agreed that adults should give children in their care a chance to calm down before taking physical action to intervene in difficult situations.

The report calls on children's services professionals to see restraint as a last resort, and says they should learn a range of techniques that do not obstruct breathing or cause pain, and make suitable choices of which to use before restraining a young person.

The young people interviewed for the report identified certain groups of children that professionals should completely avoid using physical restraint with, including young people who have experienced sexual abuse, those with asthma and disabled children.

The report was compiled through a series of ten discussion groups held with children in care across different local authorities.

Children described how physical measures could often escalate a tense situation. “How am I expected to calm down when I have people dragging me all over the place?” said one of the young participants.

“One discussion group told us that in their experience staff did not want to restrain children, and where staff had been properly trained, less restraint happened because training gave staff skills in calming children down,” said Roger Morgan, the children’s rights director.

“A common theme emerging from discussions included children warning that restraint itself can ‘wind people up’ and thereby pose the risk of making things worse rather than improving behaviour.”