Re: damage to school relationship-Jeanne

February 28, 2009

Hi Jeanne -

Yes, indeed, this school year had been a trial - I can only hope both Josh and I

come out stronger in the end!

As for the CPI restraints and holds, there are a few states that are now passing

either state legislation or school board policies that ban the most severe of

the holds/restraints - so far not IL as far as I have been able to find. What

is frightening about them is that the systems were originally designed for use

in mental health settings, for adults, and then were also used in workplace

settings as a protective device to guard against acts of violence against

workers. Then, they were used on kids with violent tendencies in juvenile

correction facilities and mental health settings. Most states have legislation,

or juvenile correction facilities have clear policies that govern the use of

such restraints and holds - schools don't. What I have been able to find is

that there has to be someone trained in their use, and from what I understand,

CPI has recommendations on when to use them, how to implement them, when to

release a kid from the restraint

or hold, the number of people who are supposed to be involved in implementing

the restraint/hold, and so on. When I sent the no-restraint letter, the head of

special ed suggested we have another meeting so the District's person in charge

of CPI restraint/hold usage could address my concerns. " The " person. I would

assume that person trains others in the district, but there is no guarantee that

the people actually employing the restraint/hold in a moment of crisis is doing

it properly (if that is even a possibility), there is no consideration for the

child's needs or conditions, and what exactly is the definition of the type of

setting that would prompt such a restraint/hold to begin with? As for not

taking into consideration the child's needs or conditions - that appears to be

where the problem lies. Since 1998, there have been over 140 deaths associated

with the types of restraints and holds the district is saying can be used on my

kid - most

of the deaths were either because oxygen was cut off due to the type of hold,

or the child suffered some type of cardiac event. Unbelievable. Josh has

asthma. One of the most restrictive holds has the adult putting the child to

the floor on his tummy, the adult holds the child's hands behind the child as

the adult straddles the child, applying " miminal " pressure to maintain the

hold. The hold is supposed to be released if the child exhibits any additional

distress or if the hold is exacerbating the situation. With Josh's asthma, such

a hold would result in him becoming even more agitated and go into respiratory

distress. Even if the hold didn't physically harm him, it certainly would cause

him trauma that simply should not be part of a child's school day.

I did ask Josh's therapist about it and he sat there shaking his head. He said

Josh is simply not a child that such holds or restraints should ever be used

on. I asked him if he'd put that in writing and he wouldn't come out and say he

would but I think he would if push came to shove.

I like the idea of some sort of positive reinforcement by the school if Josh

gets to that point. So far, I've been able to " talk him through " the tummy

ache/headache stuff and, by the time he gets on the bus, he's OK. Thank

goodness he loves the aide on the bus and the bus driver, and the other kids on

the bus- that makes that transition easier.

Thanks, Jeanne!

Sherry and Josh

________________________________

From: Jeanne <jamie199866@...>

Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 7:27:15 PM

Subject: Re: [ ] damage to school relationship-long

Hi Sherry,

I am so sorry to hear that Josh is still going through major difficulties with

school. It sure has been a long road with no end in sight for you both. I have

as you know been floowing your journey sinc ewe had briefly chatted back and

forth on the list serve regarding your Josh and my .

Wow the fact that the school wants to use those kinds of restraints on Josh. Is

just plain down right mean and demeaning. The use of these methods in a public

school setting is appalling to me. This sounds like they are out of line here.

Correct if I am wrong.

I would check into whether or not it is legal for the school to be even using

these restraint methods? Are they trained properly in using them? You could

seriously hurt someone by physically restraining them improperly? Have you

mentioned this to Joshs therapist who he sees? The person may have some things

to say to the school about it.

I can also relate to the tummy ache in the morning thing also. when he

wakes for school in the morning uses every excuse in the book not to go. He has

a stomache, headache etc. He even once told me it was art day so he could not go

to school (yes he did this ) he hates art. I think I have heard them all at this

point. I have the morning world war 3 5 days a week. It is a fight from before

getting out of bed to he gets on the bus. It is not a pretty sight. slams

my front door on the way out of my house to the bus stop every school morning he

is so mad he has to go.

I talked to the special ed teacher about it. She came up with a plan so far we

are still using it. Been using it for about 3 wks now. Every morning I write a

note to her that says how woke up and how did he do getting ready for

school. The idea is to make aware of his behavior and the fact it will not

be tolerated. He has to go to school and no matter how much he protests in the

end he is going to school.

Based on this plan gets a reward at school from his special ed teacher. If

he gets a good note to her in the morning he gets to listen to her ipod for a

few minutes. He absolutley loves this and looks forward to it. She actually

downloaded some music just for him that he likes.

This is working out ok. If starts to give me a hard time . I mention my

note will say you gave me a hard time and my note will say to teachers

name something along the lines of it. stamps his feet and I tell him no if

you wanta good note you have to do whatever it is he needs to do.

Maybe coming up with a reward system of some kind might help with Josh. Might

not also.

I hope I was of some help to you. If you ever need to talk or just to vent to

someone . i am willing to listen.

Jeanne

NH

From: Humphreys <csljh2000 (DOT) com>

Subject: Re: [childrensapraxiane t] damage to school relationship- long

@groups. com

Date: Saturday, February 28, 2009, 12:46 AM

Sherry:

I hear you loud and clear! We experience similar things with Ethan. He wakes up

in the mornings and tells me his is " sick " " stay home " . I have done all kinds of

things with the school to help minimize his stress there. So far, honestly we

are still working on it. We have tried transitional items - we send something to

school with Ethan that makes him more comfortable. It changes from week to week

sometimes depending on what he is into. He carries it with him into the building

and has it in his book bag if needed. This seems to be the most effective idea

we have come up with so far.

It is not full proof but it does help.

~

Helping Parents of Children with Apraxia~

www.ethanslifewitha praxia.com

____________ _________ _________ __

From: sherry silvern <srsilvern (DOT) com>

@groups. com

Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 9:19:57 PM

Subject: [childrensapraxiane t] damage to school relationship- long

Hi All -

Weird goings-on here in Josh-land. For those who have been online, you probably

remember that I've talked about Josh and his " fight " response (as opposed to the

" flight " response) to sensory stuff/overwhelming sensory input/etc. Josh has

always done that and we/I have always been able to talk to teachers about it and

come up with strategies to minimize it or, in most school years, eliminate it.

It takes time, but it works. This year, there was something that happened during

the Fall and I have yet to find out exactly what it was. Josh had an

extraordinarily difficult time afterward - he was even having nightmares and

getting up in the morning saying " tummy hurt, I stay home, Mommy stay home. "

Obviously something was not right on the school front. I had gotten word from

Josh's bus driver that one of the classroom aides had pulled Josh off the bus

one morning - the principal had come on the bus causing all the kids to bunch up

right by

Josh's seat and, with Josh's space issues and the change in routine, he pulled a

girl's hair. The aide on the bus said he could have handled the whole thing just

fine but the classroom aide jumped on the bus, pulled Josh off, and stood

outside the bus yelling at him face to face. Of course, the principal denied

anything like that happening, and the classroom aide said it simply didn't

happen and he had no problems with Josh. The bus driver, on the other hand, said

she was so upset by it that she was practically in tears by the time she

returned the bus to the garage, and the bus aide said he was so disturbed and

appalled by how the other aide handled things that he was furious. I called a

meeting. I said, by the time the meeting took place, I didn't care what happened

really since there were so many different versions of what happened coming my

way and there was no way to really know. What I did care about was it not

happening again so we

talked about strategies, etc. I also said that the classroom aide should not be

near Josh unless he does something major to change how he deals with my son. The

aide still is working with Josh. The bus driver was pulled off the route. Go

figure.

There was also a conversation with Josh's teacher that I had last Fall where she

said Josh was acting out so much that it took two people to hold him down. Gotta

tell ya, Josh has never acted out like that - never! So my gut was telling me

that they simply didn't have a clue what to do with Josh. We had another meeting

and reviewed strategies, methods, words, trigger words, how to understand

" Josh-speak, " all of that.

School decided it was necessary to do a functional behavior analysis. OK, I'm

all for that, let's work together to come up with a plan and actually write down

the strategies we had discussed and others. My ex and I also said we would take

Josh to a therapist/counselor to see what that private sector professional could

add to the mix. After every session, I would (and still do - the ex has yet to

participate in the sessions) send long emails detailing all the ideas and

suggestions from the counselor - none of them were ever implemented at school -

it was always " well we haven't.... " I take part of that back, school did try one

or two ideas but determined they were not working (OK, Josh processes things in

his own time - a week or two trying a strategy is not enough for Josh to

internalize it and learn it) so stopped doing the couple they tried after only a

couple of attempts.

Holiday break came in - absolutely no more nightmares, Josh did great over the

holiday season, we had tons of fun and did some school work along the way.

School started in January and things were good for a couple of weeks. Then Josh

started with the " tummy hurt " thing again, or his head hurt, or whatever (there

is nothing physically wrong that would cause any of that).

We had our p-t conference two weeks ago. Josh has progressed in math and

literacy skills, but has regressed in social and self-help skills. Hhhmmm...

They also presented us with the functional behavior analysis and behavior plan.

The assessment, from my understanding, was supposed to be across environments -

take into account things from home, sleep patterns, school things, curriculum

things, and so on. Nope. This assessment pretty much said Josh is hitting.

Period. Oh, it did say when and where. Pretty much nothing about all the

circumstances that surround an incident, no mention (that I can recall) in the

analysis of Josh having sensory integration dysfunction and cognitive delays

(along with the apraxia, global dyspraxia, and so on). We finished talking about

the analysis - the ex sucked up and said he was really impressed with the

assessment and thought they did a marvelous job. The plan included different

behaviors that they

wanted to stop and, under each one, a series of methods for dealing with the

behavior. For example, under hitting, there was a continuum from pretty much

saying cut it out, to blocking him from view of the other kids with a movable

baffle (there were also things like holding his hands, to using a " wrong hands "

card that was put on his desk and the baffle put up - you get the idea.) We

talked about some of the various strategies/methods for the various behaviors,

and moved on to another subject (whether to send Josh to jr. h.s. a year early

so he'd be there for 3 years instead of 2 - can help him with the transition and

then the transition to h.s. later but he is pretty immature so the decision is

difficult). We never talked about the last page of the behavior plan. During the

course of the conference, the PT and OT both had constructive input, the school

psych was diplomatic and had good input, the teacher limited her comments to

academic

assessment results, school principal had opinion on jr h.s. (he thinks extra

year would be good for a kid with Josh's particular needs), speech therapist

didn't say a word, and school social worker said a couple of things but I can't

remember what they were.

The ex and I left the conference, went our separate ways, and we both happened

to look at the last page of the plan and were both horrified. The last strategy

was that if staff and teacher believe Josh is a danger or harm to himself or

other kids, they can use " CPI restraints and holds. " OMG!!! If you don't know

what those are, plug that phrase into the search engine. You'll be horrified as

well. So, I went to bridges4kids. org and found a " no-restraint " letter

(wrightslaw has the same letter). I did put in the letter that I didn't think

the assessment was done as fully and adequately as it should have been and, if

the Dist. agreed, it could consider the letter as consent to conduct another

assessment that would include input from the ex and me, and be done across

environments and times. The ex and I both signed it. I mailed the letter to the

heads of special ed for the district and the school principal. (oh, during all

this,

I've been working with the head of special ed to arrange a visit to the jr h.s.

Josh would go to - I started out gung ho on the idea because of the extra

transition time but now I'm really torn on the issue and want to see firsthand

what it would be like; the ex is adamantly opposed because of Josh's maturity

level but has said he doesn't want to be " obstructionist " and would go along

with whatever Josh's teacher and the school psychologist said because " they

would be most objective " - I seem to be getting along fine with the head of

special ed even in light of my no-restraint letter.)

Well, the teacher is now either not communicating with me or is minimally/snippy

in her communications. She wrote on Monday that Josh went to OT/PT (it's a

combined group thing that the ex and I never thought was appropriate for Josh

but couldn't get the Dist to give him what he was supposed to have which was 1:1

OT and 1:1 PT - the 1:1 OT finally started in October - after fighting for

sensory based OT for over a year, and 1:1 PT just started yesterday after the PT

" reluctantly " decided the group thing wasn't working for Josh - duh!), he hit

someone and then laid down on the floor refusing to participate. In the margin

of the notebook, I wrote " How was it handled? " and " What was the activity? " and

another question that I can't remember right now. Her response was " We followed

the behavior plan. " I was livid but calmed down before I wrote back that perhaps

I didn't ask the question properly since the behavior plan shows a continuum of

methods and

I was wondering which method was used, and that I would like to know so that I

can get a better handle on just what Josh's behaviors are and whether the

methods are being successful. She wrote back that if I read the behavior plan it

would show 7 different strategies for dealing with Josh hitting and they have, a

lot of the time, success with method #1 (the least invasive/restrictiv e)

although they use different ones depending on Josh's mood.

So, I thanked her for letting me know, that it means a lot to understand the

situation (as if her response actually answered the question I posed). No

communication from her Wed., yesterday, or today even though there were things

that I had written to her that would have prompted a response (totally not

behavior stuff - a funny thing that happened with Josh, notice that the ex was

picking him up yesterday for a visit, an apology for sending an oversized book

for a book thing they were doing today, wishing a good weekend, that kind of

thing). I'm thinking the relationship with the teacher, what there was of one,

has now gone down the toilet.

Anyone have any suggestions or comments on any of this? I would ask for a

meeting but the state standardized testing is starting on Monday and I know

everyone at school is stressing out about it and I don't think I should add to

the stress level - testing will be over soon enough. I'm really at my wit's end

with all of this so I'm open to all suggestions (including ones that include " go

get a massage and relax! " LOL!)

Thanks for listening!

Sherry and Josh

March 1, 2009

Hi Sherry,

I think I might have your answer to the question of when should CPI restraints

and holds to be used. Only under extreme conditions of violent behavior towards

one self or others or in extreme situations the person is so out of control that

they have to use CPI to help them regain control. I am not a professional keep

in mind.

I do however have a huge knowledge of this topic as a person who has seen a lot

of these restraints used on others in a State run Psychiatric hospital. These

were very roughly used on the patients and very scary to see used. I have also

seen the way they physically hold a person down using them and there is between

6 to 10 people holdint the pwrson down depending on many it takes. These holds

do leave huge bruises at times do cause people to go into asthma attacks and

heart attacks from the pressure. They also used what they referred to as 4 and 6

point restarint systems to restarin them also. This is a horrible as it sounds

absolutely terrible. The only place this belong is in a mental health hospital,

prisons and youth detention centers. Keep in mind that every police department

uses these methods to restrain peoople also. I know I have seen them used by

police officers also. Plus I went to college on the same campus as the NH police

standards

and training facility was on. They trained them right in plain sight outside

if the weather was nice on their side of the campus so we could see them being

trained. Your 100 percent right Sherry there.

I do not think that any public or private school has any right to use CPI at

all. I think you are right on wqith requesting in writing they do not use this

with Josh. I hope very soon that IL out laws this. I hope every state does.

Sherry I can not picture Josh ever having such a behavior issue to warrent the

use of CPI at school. The fact that his therapist had a strange reaction to this

news should tell you something. I would push for him to put in writing his

thoughts to reinforce it.

I wish you and Josh both the best.

Jeanne

NH

From: sherry silvern <srsilvern@...>

Subject: Re: [ ] damage to school relationship-Jeanne

Date: Sunday, March 1, 2009, 1:03 AM