Prevent and provide a framework for the use of control measures in schools

Situations that could compromise the safety of students or staff can occur in schools. Even though preventive interventions have been implemented, certain situations can, exceptionally, lead to the application of a control measure such as restraint or seclusion.

Working Together to Prevent and Protect: Reference Framework for Control Measures in Schools (PDF 1.47 Mb) promotes effective practices by ensuring collective responsibility. It was designed to support concerted actions with school-family-community collaboration in mind.

This Reference Framework is intended for all school staff. The main objectives are as follows:

• Make all school staff members aware of the ethical and legal issues that concern the use of control measures in schools.
• Support schools in implementing preventive and educational interventions in order to promote a healthy and safe environment.
• Support schools in implementing alternative measures in order to keep recourse to control measures to a minimum.
• Promote a common understanding by proposing an agreed-upon vocabulary associated with control measures.

The Reference Framework presents the orientations, guiding principles, legal references and details on activities that are reserved for specific professionals and other activities that are non-reserved. It covers consent, school-family-community collaboration, the sharing of roles and responsibilities, and the importance of training.

The Reference Framework also emphasizes the preventive and educational interventions that are intended for all students and that can contribute to a healthy and safe school environment. It also suggests a reflective approach that helps school staff to recognize, from among the diverse interventions carried out with students, those that can be considered control measures. The Reference Framework shows the difference between a crisis and an emergency situation, and it provides details on the contexts in which a control measure is applied, i.e. a planned intervention and an unplanned intervention. It proposes a five-step process for these two intervention contexts in order to equip the school staff involved and to prevent the use of restraint or seclusion.

Lastly, the Reference Framework covers the role played by authorized professional staff in planning for the use of a control measure. This role falls within a collaborative process involving the school team, the student, their parents and the partners.