Records & plans
What is restrictive physical intervention?
Restrictive physical intervention is the use of force to restrict a child's movement. In a children's home it is permitted only in narrow circumstances and must be recorded and reviewed.
The permitted grounds are narrow — preventing injury, significant damage to property, or the commission of an offence — and it must be necessary and proportionate in the circumstances.
Every use has to be recorded, and the record needs to include the child's own account of it. Reviewing them individually and as a pattern is what identifies whether something about the home is generating them.
Techniques come from an approved training system, and staff using them must be trained and their training current. Improvised restraint is both dangerous and indefensible.
What goes wrong in practice
- Used to secure compliance rather than to prevent harm.
- Records omitting the child's own account of what happened.
- Patterns across a home or a shift never reviewed.