When I first met Guy Stephens of the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint in the fall of 2019, I was a completely panicked mom, worried beyond belief for the safety of my child in the New Brunswick, Canada, school system after dealing with seclusion room incidents. I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone with my child ever again. I’m sure some of you reading this can relate entirely too well, and my heart goes out to you, too. 

I had already gone through every level of the school and district, right through to the Minister of Education, and had gotten nothing but callous, largely unconcerned responses from a system that obviously saw this as an acceptable daily practice. I was horrified. All of this led to a complete denial of my daughter’s education unless I consented to restraint and seclusion. I started contacting and meeting with New Brunswick politicians. 

Working first through my dear friend Chuck Chiasson, a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) who represented us, and moving quickly on to opposition education critics and the New Brunswick Child and Youth Advocate’s office, I began providing them all with a significant amount of information to paint the picture of our journey, and the atrocious story of what was going on in New Brunswick schools overall. Ours was not the first heartbreaking story they had heard. Chuck made speeches on the legislative floor several times, calling for more disability supports and an end to restraints and seclusions in schools, relating his total disbelief at what my daughter and so many other children were going through. 

After our story aired on CTV W5 (beginning at 11:05), an Inclusive Education Canada Public Forum was held live the very same week, titled “Do Children Have Rights? The harmful effects of partial day attendance and seclusion rooms in Canada.”

I believe this might have been put together because of our story. In fact, Gordon Porter makes a comment about “not running to the media” that I think was meant for me. I believe these things because the 6-person panel included the New Brunswick Child and Youth Advocate; a human rights lawyer from New Brunswick, Jody Carr, who was the prior NB Minister of Education; and the mother, Tara, who witnessed my own daughter’s seclusion room incident at school, and describes it in this webinar. She is the only reason I ever even knew. After hearing what happened to my daughter from Tara, the entire panel agrees that this would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. My sweet, innocent, disabled daughter did not deserve this.

One of the people who began to pay attention was an MLA who sat on the Standing Committee for Public Accounts, which is why the Budget review report I’m highlighting is so significant. The other was the New Brunswick Child and Youth Advocate (CYA), Kelly Lamrock, who put out a recent report on “Learning from the Education Budgeting Saga “, as well as other very significant reports that he refers to throughout, dealing with the horrors of the New Brunswick education and social development systems. I knew another mother and advocate who was fighting heavily through a sealed human rights complaint, who couldn’t share information, but assured me that she was also heavily informing the powers that be about what was really going on in schools and with social development in NB. 

Mr. Lamrock heavily outlines issues like partial days in his report “A Policy of Giving Up,” accompanied by a Legal Guidance Memorandum for parents and caregivers, as he also happens to be a human rights lawyer. You can find other very disturbing reports from his office about the neglect of the social development system in welfare cases, and neglecting the needs of disabled children as well.  

He appeared on a webinar panel again with Inclusive Education Canada, discussing the issues of “Partial Day Attendance in Canadian Schools“, leading into the very related issue of restraint and seclusion. There is no question that restraint, seclusion, exclusion, expulsion, corporal punishment, and all things related to punitive approaches are a part of our advocacy. My own daughter was being denied her education completely because I wouldn’t consent to restraint and seclusion practices, which are definitely illegal in Canada.  

Mr. Lamrock has reported on seclusion rooms and restraints, and other high-level issues like lack of reporting, oversight, accountability, and training throughout them all, as well as in this current piece that ties all of this work together, and relates it to the many mistakes that the education system is currently making in researching, planning, budgeting, and implementing practices that actually follow Canadian Charter and Canadian and International Human Rights Laws and UN Conventions. 

Mr. Lamrock’s office even published this beautiful illustrated booklet titled What I wish I Knew: A Guide to Children’s Rights. NB’s Kelly Lamrock is one Advocate whose constituents can truly be confident is working in their children’s best interests. 

Throughout this period, the New Brunswick Coalition of Persons with Disabilities, and the dedicated Shelley Petite and Murielle Pitre, have had countless discussions and meetings with stakeholders, and worked to further all advocacy efforts through social media over these issues, while supporting families however they can. 

In the beginning, I was able to paint for them a detailed picture of the road that we had been down, including a lack of supports, frequent denials for accommodations, partial-day school schedules, restraints, and seclusions of both my daughter and my best friend’s 10-year-old, autistic son. He and his brother have endured several years of these denials, including a denial of his education almost completely since kindergarten. He was traumatically and dangerously subjected to the very same prone restraint as George Floyd, in his school lobby. After addressing this myself with the police department, and his mother with the school, district, and even this same Child and Youth Advocate’s office, three months later, six adults restrained him in a supine position at school, and refused to release him even when his mother came to his rescue. I will never forget receiving that phone call from my frantic friend about this little boy, whom I love so much, being traumatically assaulted like this. 

After meetings, information provided, and discussions with members of the advocates team, they worked hard to analyze many reports and cases of children across New Brunswick experiencing similar exclusion from school, abuses, and trauma. 

In my experience, the New Brunswick school system is so blatant about its disregard for human rights laws that they have guideline documents outlining the reporting procedures, etc, around these illegal practices. Although these are not so easily accessible, they do exist. But even these guidelines—which protect practices that are themselves illegal—are not followed by the very system that created them.

They are so completely confident in their illegal actions that they have continued to do these things even after these very public, scathing Advocate’s office reports, as he states in his most current report, published on September 15, 2025, in what he says is a “Wake Up Call” for the New Brunswick education system. This report includes budget information from the last two sessions with the NB Standing Committee on Public Accounts questioning the Education Department, and the issues raised there on the legislative floor, as well as an analysis of everything provided by the Education Department in response to their reports. It would be interesting to see what that response entails. It appears in this report that they have agreed to the CYA office’s critical recommendations “in principle”, but not in practice. 

It is also interesting to note in many of these reports that the same issues do not necessarily exist in the majority Francophone (French) Department as they do in the minority Anglophone (English) department. Is there a culturally biased systemic setup difference at play here that is supporting these human rights violations? New Brunswick is the only legal bilingual province in Canada. I’m not sure that both languages and cultures are respected equally, however, particularly in rural Northern New Brunswick. This is also where my daughter’s first few incidents of traumatic seclusion took place, at the one and only English school that was available to us there.

It is so difficult to imagine disabled children being subjected to abuse, seclusion, and even the potentially lethal force of restraint at school, at the hands of principals, teachers, local police, and other adults in primary positions of care, planning, and accommodating disabled children, and yet we know this happens every day. We also know that this puts the adults around them at risk. Although some of the reasoning for that is a total lack of support throughout the social, health, and education systems, the responsibility remains at several levels within schools themselves, and most often the burden falls most heavily on frontline teachers, educational assistants, and support staff. We see you! Administrators, district leads, advocates, and politicians, we see you too! Equipping yourself with the education and tools to find a better way to do things will lead to confidence in your position and amazing results that you might not have known were possible. It certainly has for me as a parent. 

Every individual has the ability at this point to access the information and education needed to do better. That’s one of the reasons the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint is here. Through interviews with a wide range of professionals, self-advocates, advocates, and parents, as well as conferences, book studies, courses, and articles that bring forth so much valuable information, we’re here to help. Please get in touch with us if we can help you find your best path to a better way!

Today, though, you have an opportunity to use your voice to make waves! 

For New Brunswick families, InclusionNB has been an ongoing support in many ways, including advocating heavily for more inclusive practices in schools. Now, they have released a call for our opinions and advice to share with stakeholders looking to make a change in New Brunswick’s Education system. People are really listening now! 

This is the email that I received from InclusionNB this week, asking us all to ”Help Shape the Future of Education”- September 17, 2025:  

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

New Brunswick is in the process of developing a new Education Plan aimed at ensuring all students have the tools and support they need to learn, grow, and thrive. This is a significant opportunity for families to help shape the future of education in our communities, and we encourage you to take part. 

The provincial government is currently seeking public feedback on five key areas:

• Refocusing on learning
• Enhancing learning environments
• Addressing well-being
• Enhancing workforce stability
• Transforming the education system

You can participate in a few important ways. If your child attends or has attended school in the Anglophone sector, please use the links below to participate. If your child attends or has attended school in the Francophone sector, please use the links in the column on the right-hand side, as the consultation for the Francophone sector covers different topics:

• Share your ideas online by filling out a short survey that can be found by clicking on this link: survey form
• Send additional questions or feedback using this email before October 31st: engage.EECD-EDPE@gnb.ca
• Attend an in-person or virtual public consultation session (dates to be announced on this site): www.gnb.ca/educationplans
• Share this email with your networks to help spread the word.
• You can read a discussion paper and documents here: www.gnb.ca/educationplans 

Inclusion NB will also be attending public consultations and submitting a formal brief to represent the voices and concerns of students and families within our community. We encourage you to share your suggestions for improving inclusive practices within the Anglophone sector and protecting the rights of all New Brunswick students, including students with an intellectual or developmental disability.

Your feedback and insights will help inform the Government of NB’s recommendations and will support the development of the new Education Plan. 

Together, we can make a greater impact on the direction of the new Education Plan and ensure that it reflects what students and families truly need. Your voice matters, and your feedback is valuable, and now is the time to be heard.

Thank you for your continued support and engagement.