Friend-of-the-blog Candace Cortiella of The Advocacy Institute has collected a great set of resources for those who’d like to follow the current state of national policy related to restraints and seclusion of children with disabilities.
In addition to the work that Candace has sponsored directly, like an August podcast with experts in the field, she has also linked to several important documents on the topic, like the May 2009 report from U.S. Government Accountability Office noting that there have been hundreds of cases of restraint and seclusion with no federal oversight, and other reports that note the wide disparity in state laws relating to this issue. This is excellent source material for advocates and school officials.
Let me also note some articles I’ve written on restraints and seclusion. In April 2009, I wrote an article on the report “School Is Not Supposed to Hurt,” produced by the National Disability Rights Network. And in June of 2009, I produced a shorter article on the response to the GAO report.