Sept 14, 2018, Edmonton (AL) Journal: Parents, advocates launch survey to learn how Alberta schools use seclusion rooms https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/parents-advocates-launch-survey-to-learn-how-alberta-schools-use-seclusion-rooms A lack of provincial data on school seclusion rooms has prompted a non-profit organization to survey parents about the use of restraint and isolation in schools. Posted Friday, the online survey is the first effort by Inclusion Alberta to find out how often students are locked in time-out rooms and for how long. Many students who end up in the rooms have developmental disabilities or behavioural disorders. “We want to try to get as complete a picture as possible of something that, in fact, has been hidden to most people in this province that has not yet been addressed,” Inclusion Alberta’s CEO emeritus, Bruce Uditsky, said at a Friday news conference. The room goes by many names, including isolation room, seclusion room, time-out room, safe room, or calm room. Institutions use them to either give an out-of-control person a place to calm down, or as a punishment for their behaviour, said Dick Sobsey, University of Alberta professor emeritus in educational psychology. There hasn’t been much research on whether the rooms are effective at changing students’ behaviour, he said in a Friday interview. There are often more effective ways of calming or diverting people having an outburst, he said. If the rooms are being used correctly, and staff are beholden to good guidelines, the rooms are rarely used, he said. Although Alberta’s education minister said isolation rooms should only be used as a “last resort,” Inclusion Alberta staff has heard of children locked in the rooms for hours, or on multiple occasions, CEO Trish Bowman said. School districts are free from reporting requirements on using the rooms, and provincial guidelines on their use are not enforced, Uditsky said. “Locking and leaving children with disabilities neglected and abandoned in seclusion or isolation rooms is a form of abuse and violence that needs to end immediately,” Bowman said Friday. “No child should go to school with this threat looming over them.” Families traumatized by rooms To demonstrate the potential harm of seclusion rooms, parents Marcy Oakes and Warren Henschel tearfully told reporters Friday about alleged actions by staff at a Sherwood Park public school in 2015. In a lawsuit, they allege staff locked their son with autism, then 12, inside a room naked, where they later found him covered with his own feces…. Edmonton parent Angela McNair is also wary of isolation rooms after she took her six-year-old son Rowan on a school visit two weeks ago. Rowan, who has autism spectrum disorder, Tourette syndrome, sensory processing disorder and other disabilities, was anxious and acting aggressively when McNair took him to visit the teacher at an Edmonton public school on Aug. 31…. A last resort Edmonton Public Schools calls the isolation rooms “timeout space,” and the school district is currently reviewing how staff use them, spokeswoman Carrie Rosa said in an email Friday. The district has “behaviour and learning assistance” programs at 36 schools, and “most” of the programs have a timeout space, Rosa said. The rooms are a last resort option to “give the student a chance to regain control of their emotions and actions in a safe environment,” she said. Biting, kicking, punching or throwing furniture present a risk to others, she said….
top of page

Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
bottom of page