Mental Health & Wellbeing
Restraint and Seclusion Policy
You may have seen that restraint and seclusion has been a hot topic within the media over the holidays for people with a disability. Where this pertains more to NDIS therapists working with neurodiverse students with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disabilities, the following policy guidance below is a good reminder for us all.
The Restraint and Seclusion policy outlines the circumstances where physical restraint and seclusion are permitted in Victorian government schools.
Physical restraint and seclusion are only permitted in exceptional circumstances where it is necessary to protect the physical safety of a student or another person.
The policy outlines reporting and notification requirements and the responsibilities of school and corporate staff in relation to incidents of physical restraint and seclusion.
School staff must never use physical restraint and seclusion as behaviour management techniques, for convenience, as retaliation, or to discipline or punish a student.
Physical restraint must never be used where it has the effect of:
- covering a student’s mouth or nose, or in any way interferes with breathing
- taking a student to the ground into the prone or supine position
- putting stress on a student’s joints
- applying pressure to the neck, back, chest or joints
- deliberately applying pain to gain compliance
- intentionally causing a student to fall
- having a person sitting, lying, or kneeling on a student.
The following behaviours are prohibited:
- headlocks, choke holds, basket holds, bear hugs, therapeutic holding or wrestling holds (including full or half nelsons)
- using a hog-tied position
- straddling any part of a student's body
- dragging a student along the ground.
Physical restraint and seclusion must never be included in a student plan including behaviour support and student safety plans. Designated seclusion rooms and areas that are primarily used for the purpose of seclusion are prohibited. Preventing a student from leaving an area normally used by students with a locking mechanism is prohibited.
Doors and door handles installed in such a manner as to prevent a student from leaving the room unassisted are prohibited. Physical restraint is not permitted to be used to vaccinate a student.
The Department have recently updated the Restraint and Seclusion policy to:
- list supervised situations that do not meet the definition of seclusion
- include additional information about new professional development, including an information session in Term 4, 2023, to help school staff learn more about the policy
- provide guidance to help schools and National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) practitioners to work together. For example, it is the responsibility of a school principal to determine whether a NDIS behaviour support practitioner can attend a school site and whether student information can be provided to them.
Please familiarise yourself with the updated policy and your school’s responsibilities.
Child Safe Standards
There will be a short professional learning session for all staff on Tuesday of Week 1 on the Child Safe Standards and time allocated to complete the eLearn Mandatory Reporting module.
The Jackson School Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy demonstrates our school’s commitment to creating and maintaining a child safe and child-friendly organisation, where children and young people are safe and feel safe. This policy provides an overview of our school’s approach to implementing Ministerial Order 1359 (PDF, 363KB) which sets out how the Victorian Child Safe Standards apply in school environments. It informs our school community of everyone’s obligations to act safely and appropriately towards children and guides our processes and practices for the safety and wellbeing of students across all areas of our work.
The new Child Safe Standards are:
- Culturally safe environments
- Child safety and wellbeing is embedded in leadership, governance and culture
- Child and student empowerment
- Family engagement
- Diversity and Equity
- Suitable staff and volunteers
- Complaints processes
- Child safety knowledge, skills, and awareness
- Child safety in physical and online environments
- Review of child safety practices
- Implementation of child safe practices
To view our Jackson School Policy Advisory Library with child safe standards policy and guidelines, please visit: https://newsletters.naavi.com/i/pNpVrpM or visit our website.
- Child Safety & Wellbeing Policy
- Child Safety Responding and Reporting Obligations Policy and Procedures
- Code of Conduct
- Risk Register
Alex Baynes our School Social Worker / Child Safety Officer continues to work with the families and student vulnerable support groups. Please don't hesitate to reach out to Alex, Robyn, myself or any member of the leadership team if you are concerned about a child's safety. For emergency assistance where a child is in danger always call 000.
SunSmart
Here is the video from our Jackson Student Leadership Team (JSLT) about being SunSmart.
For Primary students from 14th August to 30 April 2023, all students must wear a sun-protective hat that shades the face, neck and ears for all outdoor activities. Hats may also be worn for all outdoor activities outside of the August to April time period, by parent or student choice.
For Secondary students we expect students to take responsibility for their sun safety by wearing a hat during outdoor activities and adopting other sun protection measures such as wearing sunscreen or using shade.
All staff should model SunSmart behaviours when on active supervision duty.
When the UV is 3 or above, be SunSmart!
Behaviour Flowchart
Staff should continue to redirect a student, re-teach expectations using the language of the skills on our PBIS posters and repeat this process three times to reinforce our expectated behaviours. On the forth instance, staff should write a minor incident "office referral" form. These are managed by the teacher in the classroom with the support of your team.
For major behaviours, these are initially managed within the classroom where possible but leadership may be required to support with the behaviour and de-escalate the situation. It is vitally important that you keep yourself and other students safe at all times. Where required remove the other students from the zone.
We are attempting to reduce the amount of PA announcements throughout the school day. This is disruptive to classroom learning, neighbours and meeting with families and external visitors. For Behaviour Support staff should continue to call 301. Following staff feedback, we are now setting-up virtual extensions so that this calls leadership mobile phones instead of office phones. Where possible your allocated Leading Teacher will be the first to respond to ensure consistency aligned to the student's behaviour support plan. Where they are not available or dealing with another behaviour, other members of leadership can also attend to support. Do not intervene physically or verbally if the student is escalated.
For major or critical behaviours, a PA annoucement can be made using #40 for "support to class/location please". Staff may also call an orange lockdown during an emergency management situation. If staff do please also call for leadership support and state the location of the emergency.
The new PBIS Team will review the Behaviour Flow Chart again in 2023 as part of the initiative.
Lose the Knife - Not a Life
As you are all aware, knife/edged weapon crime continues to rise and be of major concern for the safety and wellbeing of members of our community. There have been two fatal incidents in St Albans/Sunshine over the last couple of weeks where students in neighbouring schools have tragically lost their lives. We have received the following posters from the Proactive Policing Unit which were developed by crime stoppers as part of a campaign to target this issue. The campaign will be updated later this year, but in the meantime the Police have asked if we would display some copies, secondary toilet blocks etc to help keep our students safe. We do have some secondary students who are involved in gang-related behaviours outside of school and have carried weapons for them to feel safe within our community. I would hate for a Jackson student to be the next victim of local knife crimes.
To download these posters, please click below: