NICCY Review of Restraint and Seclusion in Educational Settings

Background

NICCY undertook a rights-based review on the use of Restraint and Seclusion in Educational Settings and have made 15 recommendations.

Our Review provided evidence from a range of stakeholders including schools, professionals and parents regarding Restraint and Seclusion in schools in Northern Ireland. The Review will include clear recommendations to the Minister for Education and Department of Education on updating its guidance and support for school settings to ensure:

• Seclusion is no longer used in educational settings.
• Restraint is only used as a last resort only when the child or others are at risk, and its use is recorded and reported, and parents are fully informed.
• Children’s rights are considered and protected at all times during any use of physical intervention using restrictive practices.

You can find out more by reading our press release from the launch here

You can view the event launch using the link below:

Monitoring Update (December 2022)

We have completed an assessment of the Government’s response to the recommendations made in ‘Neither Seen Nor Heard’.

• You can view the monitoring update here

Reports

• We have produced a suite of reports which you can view here. 

Advisory Group

NICCY established an advisory group to inform its Review on the Use of Restraint and Seclusion within educational settings. The advisory group, chaired by our Chief Executive, comprised parents, academics, professionals and practitioners with experience of and/or expertise on the use of restraint and seclusion within an educational setting. The advisory group played a valuable and important role in supporting NICCY in relation to work on our rights-based Review.

Terms of Reference (ToR)

The TOR for our work on the Use of Restraint and Seclusion in Educational Settings’ sets out the policy and legal context as well as the human rights framework which underpins NICCY’s rights based review.  The TOR outlined issues in current practices, highlighted the aims of the review and the methodology on which NICCY conducted its research.  Finally, the TOR outlined NICCY’s Advisory Group brief and timeline for the report to be launched.

• For more information on the Terms of Reference for this project click here.

More Information

• For further information contact arlene@niccy.org