Michigan Restraint & Seclusion Press Conference

For reference only, as this is post date. Hopefully there is more info to come. I pulled the following from The Coalition for Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports. Please note the relevance to what is happening in Missouri. In Missouri, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) must develop a model policy, but following the recommendations or reporting usage of seclusion and restraint is not mandatory. The Michigan department of education has a "volunteer policy" (which by the way was mentioned numerous times as a 'good example' in the recent DESE meeting), which appears not to be decreasing the abuse and misuse of seclusion and restraint.

Pulled from Forwarded message from a parent advocate:


Michigan residents, it's time to act now! On Wednesday, December 2, 2009, there will be a press conference in the Capital Building Room 426, Lansing, at 11:00 am to support Rep. Kennedy, who plans to introduce a bill to stop seclusion and restraint in public schools. The last legislation that was introduced as the Children's Health Act of 2000 regulates the use of restraint and seclusion in certain hospitals, health care facilities, residential non-medical facilities, and other programs that serve children under Medicaid or Medicare. These regulations do not cover schools, even though schools bill Medicaid for billions of dollars each year.


Michigan's voluntary policy isn't working. Only 22 of 57 Independent School Districts (ISD's) collect data on the use of restraint and seclusion as recommended under the policy and those ISD's reported over 3,200 incidents last year.


Mandatory changes are needed. This is what we need to ask for.


For more information, contact Mark McWilliams, Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service, Inc (MPAS), at (715) 487-1755 or toll free at 1-800-288-5923.

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