The NSW DoE’s standards around physical intervention are extremely unclear and allow for staff to potentially get away with brutal practices. This is especially a serious threat to the rights of students with ASD who experience meltdowns, which are driven by a fight or flight response - they are scared.

I am aware that it’s used to prevent students from trying to run away or become aggressive, but it must be stressed that the policy is way too broad and on a regular basis these scared ASD students are subjected to intentionally painful and unnecessarily prolonged use of holds, which can result in severe physical and psychological harm in many cases, and the legal standard does not explicitly condemn this.

If a police officer was to continuously hurt someone while immobilised for over half an hour or longer, as is done regularly to students with ASD supposedly for “safety” it would likely be considered torture and therefore a serious crime and breach of rights for the last 170 years.  So why can school staff in the 21st century do this to scared disabled children?

I recognise the need for holding sometimes, if a student is genuinely so heightened that they could inadvertently cause themselves or others serious harm, but there is way too many cases where the use of restraint goes too far and becomes just excessive and cruel. I strongly believe this is driven by a fundamental lack of understanding of ASD in the school environment.

It’s been way too long. Stop this incredibly underreported serious mistreatment with me, sign this petition!