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An open letter to Senator Amy Sinclair
What follows is an open letter we sent to Iowa State Senator Amy Sinclair regarding her proposed legislation Senate Study Bill 3080. The bill encourages the segregation of behaviorally challenging children with special needs. The bill would make it easier for teachers to use restraint and seclusion and grants immunity to school staff that injure…
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Introducing Alexa Zagorites
Join me in welcoming Alexa Zagorites to the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint team. Alexa’s daughter Gigi has faced seclusion & restraint within a classroom setting since 2008. Since her daughter was diagnosed with a chromosome disorder when she was two years old it has been my Alexa’s life mission to not only protect Gigi…
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Compassion and positive relationships – not restraint
I am a special education teacher of 15 years and have seen and experienced many challenging behaviors in children with disabilities. For many years, my job was working with severely disabled students. In the past year, I have been working with children with lower support needs. These are academically capable students some of whom might…
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Nightmares from the “the naughty room”
I often tell people that when our son Cole was born thirteen years ago with Down syndrome, that he flipped our world upside down in the best way. His love of life and ability to appreciate the moment is something we can all learn from. He has always been a loving, kind and funny little…
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Tracking Legislation to Impact Change
Advocates and activists track legislation for a few reasons. Usually, mission driven, we seek strategy that has worked in other regions of the country in order to propose solutions to the issue we wish to impact.
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Children with challenging behaviors need compassion and calming, not restraint or seclusion
Max Benson was only 13 when he died in a Sacramento, California hospital in November of 2018. A day earlier, after school employees allege that he spit on a classmate, school staffers had responded by holding him in a face-down restraint for an hour and 45 minutes, according to court records. He never recovered.
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Is your child being locked up at school in Canada?
With the help of Silas Brown of Global News, we are finally able to tell our story, and to warn other parents about what happened to our non-verbal, autistic daughter Lily, at her old school.
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Introducing Alex Campbell
Please join me in welcoming Alex Campbell as a contributor to the Alliance Against Restraint and Seclusion. We are very excited to have Alex join our team and look forward to working with him to impact change. Alex Campbell is an advocate for students with disabilities and the Executive Director of Campbell Advocacy. He is…
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Maryland use of restraint and seclusion increasing
According to a recent report from the Maryland State Department of Education, the use of restraint and seclusion is increasing in Maryland schools. The report, Restraint and Seclusion: Data Collection, Findings, and Recommendations 2018/19 indicated that there were 19,713 instances of restraints and 9,532 instances of seclusion reported during the 2018/19 reporting period.
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Introducing Pamela Ononiwu
Please join me an welcoming Pamela Ononiwu as a contributor to the Alliance Against Restraint and Seclusion.
