Category: People
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Facebook Live: Training Series
I wanted to share that we are doing a Facebook Live training series. The idea began because of the challenges during the current COVID-19 crisis. Given the current situation across the world, many parents and caregivers now find themselves suddenly acting as educators for their behaviorally challenging children. We have heard from many parents, especially…
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Introducing Cheryl Poe
Join me in welcoming Cheryl Poe to the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint team. Cheryl is an amazing advocate, teacher and parent with a tremendous background in special education.
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Seclusion Changed Me Forever
365 days ago, I laid awake most of the night worried about the reverberations of the day ahead. I pulled myself out of bed and awakened my 13 year old son Quentin who was peacefully sleeping between my husband and I. I turned on our local NPR station, WAMU. As I went about the mundanities…
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Making Positive Change Through Negative Experiences
The Story of Sam Maloney Today’s guest author is Debra Pierce Bellare. Debra has a background in education with a focus on alternative learning. Over the last ten years, she has been advocating to stop the harmful practice of restraint and seclusion used in the public and private school systems in New York State. Her son Sam,…
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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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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…