Early results of seclusion room survey alarming, advocacy group says

A provincial advocacy group's survey about the use of seclusion rooms in Alberta schools has closed and the group calls the early results alarming.

Inclusion Alberta announced the survey on Sept. 14 at a news conferencecalling for the regulation or banning of seclusion rooms for students with disabilities at a news conference.

Seclusion or isolation rooms "are used as a last resort intervention for students whose behaviour puts their own safety, the safety of other students and/or staff at risk," a spokesperson for Edmonton Public Schools said in an emailed statement in September when asked to describe their use.

• Advocacy group calls for review of seclusion rooms in Alberta schools
• Guidelines on seclusion room use in Alberta schools coming in weeks

The call for a review followed a lawsuit launched last year by the parents of a Sherwood Park boy, who said their autistic son was stripped naked and locked in a school isolation room, where he was later found covered in his own feces.

The survey closed yesterday with more than 600 responses.Most of the respondents have children who were between the ages of 5 and 10 years old when they were placed in a seclusion room, said Trish Bowman, CEO of Inclusion Alberta.

She added that 25 per cent of parents reported that their children had been placed in a seclusion roomonce a week, while another 25 per cent said their children were put in a seclusion room once a day.

"Over 80 per cent are reporting that there are obvious signs of emotional trauma and distress as a result of being placed in seclusion and that it doesn't appear to be helping to improve behaviour," Bowman said.

"We have reports of increased anxiety for children. Refusal to go to school. Kids being afraid of being alone in a room with the door shut, bed-wetting, increased aggression. It really is quite broad."

Bowman said the group started the survey because of a lack of data around the use of seclusion rooms in Alberta.

"Seclusion is not supposed to be used as a programmatic strategy," Bowman said. "At its very best it should only be used in an emergency when there's real risk of injury to others."

The results of the survey are expected to be analyzed by researchers before being turned into a report, which Bowman hopes will be used as a resource.

"We would prefer to not have them [seclusion rooms] at all, but also that there's appropriate training for school staff so that they can figure out different ways of supporting children when they are distressed as a opposed to just locking them in a room alone," said Bowman.

In September, Education Minister David Eggen told reporters in Edmonton that a working group will come up with binding standards for the use of such rooms.

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Twitter: Travis.mcewan@cbc.ca