In January 2019, the U.S. Department of Education released information regarding a new
initiative for the use of restraint and seclusion in public schools across the nation. This
initiative came after a recent data collection, which revealed that approximately 122,000
students across the country were subject to restraint or seclusion during the 2015-2016
academic year. Additionally, the Department of Education found significant indicators within
the data that led the Department to believe that the number of incidents were largely
underreported.
The Department of Education stated that it will work to educate school districts of their
obligations regarding the use of restraint and seclusion, and the accurate data reporting thereof under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Bottom line, schools across the country will be held to a higher level of compliance for
collecting and reporting seclusion and restraint incidences.
This means that it will be critical for school districts to promote consistency in documenting
and reporting all behavioral incidences in the months to come. In addition to state and federal regulations regarding restraint and seclusion, districts will need to document and manage data from behavior incident reports to better develop meaningful and effective plans that will support student self-regulation and behavioral independence.
To support EmbraceIEP® clients with this need, Embrace® offers a Behavior Incident
Reporting accessory that can be purchased as an add-on to the EmbraceIEP® subscription.
With Embrace® Behavior Incident Reporting, incidents can be documented easily and
consistently. Printable incident reports can be generated to notify parents of a restrain or
seclusion incident and historical records continue to be accessible for compliance purposes.
After collecting behavior data, school districts can easily generate custom reports to track
various behaviors, including seclusion and restraint incidents.
The newly revamped EmbraceMTSS™ program includes the Behavioral Incident Reporting
component with the annual subscription. This supports district staff members with a consistent document management tool that allows planning teams to view behavioral incidents over time. This can assist teams to better develop meaningful and effective intervention plans which impact student growth.
To find out more about Embrace® Behavioral Incident Reporting, please contact our office at
success@embraceeducation.com or call 888-437-9326.
For more information regarding the U.S. Department of Education's Seclusion and Restraint Initiative, go to https://www.ed.gov/