The
Alliance to Prevent Restraint,
Aversive Interventions, and Seclusion
Vision
All
children should grow up free from the use of restraint, seclusion, and
aversive interventions to respond to or control their behavior, and
free from the fear that these practices will be used on themselves,
their siblings or their friends.
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Every day in this country, children with
disabilities are needlessly being subjected to harmful practices
in the name of treating "challenging behaviors." They
are brought down to the ground and straddled, strapped or tied
in chairs and beds, blindfolded, slapped and pinched, startled
by cold water sprays in the face, deprived of food, secluded in
locked rooms, and more, despite the fact that research and
practice show that these techniques exacerbate challenging
behavior and do nothing to teach the child appropriate
behaviors.
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The Alliance to Prevent Restraint, Aversive
Interventions and Seclusion is a joint effort of the nation's major
disability advocacy organizations, formed in response to this alarming
problem.
Alliance members are working at the national level
to assure children with disabilities of equal protection across
funding systems and service delivery settings. At the state level, we
are working to ensure to ensure adequate training and systems of
reporting and accountability to enforce these protections. In
addition, we are engaging in an aggressive educational outreach effort
to assure that individual parents and advocates are knowledgeable and
empowered to support each other and partner with APRAIS in effecting
systems change.
Mission
To
seek the elimination of the use of seclusion, aversive interventions,
and restraint to respond to or control the behavior of children and
youth.
To
prohibit the incorporation of these practices into the education,
habilitation, or other service delivery plans provided to children and
youth with disabilities.
To
promote nationwide consistency in the protections, monitoring, and
reporting that will keep children and youth safe from restraint,
seclusion, and aversive interventions, ensuring that children enjoy
equal rights and protections across all settings in which they
receive education, health services, mental health services,
correctional services, residential or foster care, and all other
services.
To
educate our constituencies, providers, policy makers, and the public
at large to understand that restraint is not treatment but represents
failure to provide appropriate services and supports, that there is no
evidence to justify the use of seclusion and aversive interventions
under any circumstances, and that tolerance of restraint, seclusion,
and aversive interventions:
·
Causes
serious physical and psychological harm,
·
Results
in the dehumanization of all involved,
·
Prevents
the development of respectful and supportive relationships between
children and adults, and
·
Leads
to the segregation and exclusion of children from their communities.
To
carry out this mission on behalf of all children and youth, with or
without disabilities, regardless of diagnostic label or degree of
disability, so that no child is left behind.
APRAIS
Member Organizations
