Restraint and Seclusion

The legal landscape, the major training programs, and the case for minimization

Why this brief

Restraint and seclusion are among the highest-stakes practices a paraprofessional ever performs. They are emergency procedures, not behavior management; they carry meaningful risk of physical and psychological harm to the student and physical risk to the staff; they are the single most-litigated area of school behavior practice; and they are the area where federal civil rights data has documented persistent disproportionality (students with disabilities and Black students are restrained and secluded at substantially higher rates than peers).

This brief covers the federal landscape (and the federal absence), what state law typically governs, the major training programs, what fidelity to the practice actually means, the documentation that has to follow, and the broader case the field is making for minimization. It is not a substitute for the authorized training your district provides — and that training is the only thing that authorizes you to perform restraint or seclusion at all.

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| :-: |

| If you are reading this because something happened todayDocument everything you remember now, while it's fresh. Time, who was present, what preceded, what was used, how long, what happened after. Brief 16.14 covers what to do if you witnessed a restraint that concerned you. |

1\. Definitions

1.1 Restraint

Federal guidance and most state laws distinguish three categories:

Physical restraint — the use of personal physical force to limit a student's movement, typically by holding the student's body.

Mechanical restraint — devices that limit movement (straps, harnesses, restraint chairs). Not used in most U.S. schools; sometimes part of medical equipment.

Chemical restraint — medication used to control behavior outside of a treatment plan. Should not occur in school settings.

In school contexts, when staff and policies say "restraint," they almost always mean physical restraint.

1.2 Seclusion

Involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving. "Time-out" in a chair the student can leave is not seclusion. A locked or blocked room the student cannot leave is.

1.3 What is NOT restraint

Brief physical contact for safety (e.g., gently redirecting a student who is about to step into traffic).

Hand-over-hand teaching prompts (consensual, instructional).

Holding a young child who has fallen or is upset (consensual, comforting).

Mechanical equipment that supports body position (positioning equipment for students with physical disabilities — adaptive equipment, not restraint).

The defining features of restraint and seclusion are involuntariness and the limiting of movement or freedom — not all physical contact qualifies.

2\. Federal landscape

There is no comprehensive federal restraint and seclusion law for schools. Several federal frames apply:

U.S. Department of Education has issued guidance documents (most prominently the 2012 "Restraint and Seclusion: Resource Document") establishing 15 principles for state and district policy. Guidance, not law.

IDEA requires the IEP team to consider behavior plans for students whose behavior impedes learning. If restraint or seclusion is foreseeable, the BIP should describe the conditions and procedures.

Section 504 / ADA prohibit disability-based discrimination — discriminatory use of restraint or seclusion can produce civil rights violations.

Title IX, Title VI — analogous protections on sex and race; relevant given documented disproportionality.

Office for Civil Rights (OCR) data collection requires districts to report restraint and seclusion incidents in the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). Public data; districts can be benchmarked.

Federal legislation (the Keeping All Students Safe Act and similar bills) has been proposed repeatedly without passage.

So the federal floor is mostly procedural and civil-rights-based, not prescriptive about specific practices. State law fills in most of the substance.

3\. State landscape

State law on restraint and seclusion varies widely. As of 2025, all 50 states have some form of policy, but coverage is uneven:

Some states prohibit prone restraint (face-down) entirely (e.g., New York, several others). Some restrict it. Some don't address it specifically.

Some states prohibit seclusion entirely (e.g., Hawaii). Others permit it under specified conditions.

Some require parent notification within 24 hours of any incident; some require the same school day; some don't specify.

Some require specific authorized training programs; some leave training to district choice; some don't require training at all.

Some require post-incident debriefing (with the student, with the team, with the family); some don't.

Some require statistical reporting to the state DOE; some don't.

Some authorize specific staff roles to perform restraint; others don't restrict who can be authorized.

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| Find your state's specific rulesSearch '\[your state\] restraint seclusion law school' or check your state DOE's special education page. Your district policy lives on top of state law and may add more restrictions. Both should be in your district's restraint training materials. |

4\. When restraint and seclusion are authorized — the universal threshold

Across nearly every state and policy framework, restraint and seclusion are authorized only as emergency responses to imminent danger. The shared standard is roughly:

There must be imminent risk of serious physical injury to the student, staff, or others.

Less restrictive alternatives have been attempted or are not available given the immediacy.

The restraint or seclusion is no more intrusive or longer than necessary to address the immediate danger.

It ends as soon as the imminent danger has resolved.

Restraint and seclusion are NOT authorized:

As punishment or consequence.

As behavior management for non-dangerous behavior.

As a tool for academic compliance.

To prevent property damage that doesn't endanger people (in most jurisdictions).

In the absence of authorized training and current certification.

As a routine part of a BIP unless explicitly authorized by the IEP team and consistent with state law.

On students whose physical condition makes it dangerous (cardiac, respiratory, certain medical conditions).

In ways the student's plan or medical record contraindicates.

5\. Major training programs

U.S. schools use several different crisis training programs. Each has a philosophy, a procedural toolkit, and a certification structure. The choice between them is usually a district-level decision; paras don't typically pick. Knowing the differences helps you understand what your training did and didn't authorize.

| Program | Philosophy and notes |

| :-: | :-: |

| Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) — Nonviolent Crisis Intervention | Most-common in U.S. schools. Verbal de-escalation emphasized; physical interventions taught only as last resort. Multiple levels (Foundation, Verbal Intervention, Physical Skills). Annual refresher typically required. |

| Ukeru Systems | Restraint-free model. Emphasizes comfort over control. Uses soft barriers and redirection rather than restraint. Adopted by some districts that have moved away from restraint use. |

| QBS Safety-Care | Behavioral Safety Training. Two-person procedures emphasized; ABA-aligned. Common in autism-specific and EBD programs. |

| MANDT System | Relationship-based; emphasizes prevention. Multiple levels including non-physical and physical interventions. |

| Right Response | Verbal de-escalation focus; minimal physical techniques. More common in some states. |

| Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) | Cornell University-developed; widely used in residential and child welfare settings; some school adoption. |

| PCM (Professional Crisis Management) | Behavioral; used in some specialized programs. |

5.1 What programs typically share

Verbal de-escalation as the first-line response.

A continuum from least to most intrusive intervention.

Specific physical techniques for each authorized intervention.

Time limits on physical holds (typically very short).

Documentation requirements.

Annual or bi-annual recertification.

5.2 What varies

Whether prone restraint is taught at all (increasing rejection across programs).

Whether seclusion procedures are included.

How much emphasis is placed on prevention vs. response.

How explicitly trauma-informed the model is.

Two-person vs. one-person procedures.

Cost and time investment for certification.

6\. Fidelity to your authorized training

Whatever program your district uses, fidelity matters. The certification authorizes specific techniques, performed in specific ways, in specific situations. Improvising — using a hold you saw in a video, using a technique from a different program, performing a technique past its time limit — exposes the student to injury, exposes you to legal and professional risk, and fails the team's data.

6.1 What fidelity looks like

You only use techniques you have been certified in within the past year (or your program's recertification window).

You perform techniques exactly as trained — body position, time limits, monitoring.

You stop when the imminent danger has resolved, not when the student has "learned a lesson."

Two-person procedures are run with two trained adults, not improvised solo.

Documentation is completed immediately after.

6.2 When you've drifted

If the team has been performing techniques outside the trained protocol — "because it works," "because we don't have time," "because no one ever checked" — that's a system flag. Surface it to the supervising teacher or admin. Drift in restraint practice produces injuries; the field's pattern of catastrophic incidents traces to drift.

7\. Documentation

Every restraint or seclusion event requires documentation, usually within 24 hours and often within the same school day. Specifics are state and district. Common required elements:

Student name, date, time of start, time of end.

What preceded the event — antecedent, behavior, specific risk.

Less restrictive alternatives attempted before the event.

The specific technique used.

Who performed the technique; who witnessed; who supervised.

Duration of the hold or seclusion.

Any injuries to student or staff.

Notification of the parent (timing and method).

Post-event assessment of student wellbeing.

Plan for follow-up (BIP review, student debrief).

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| Your account is the official recordWhat you write becomes the document that goes to admin, the family, the IEP team, and (in many states) the state DOE. Be specific. Be accurate. Don't editorialize. Use exact times where possible. If you're not sure of an exact time, say "approximately." Don't guess. |

8\. Post-incident debriefing

Most authorized programs and many state laws require post-incident debriefing — sometimes with the student, sometimes with the team, sometimes with the family.

Student debrief — when the student is regulated and ready, a brief, low-blame conversation about what happened, what helped, what didn't.

Team debrief — within 24–48 hours, the staff who were present review the incident with the supervising teacher or BCBA. What antecedent factors were in play? Was the technique necessary? Could it have been prevented?

Family communication — required notification, plus where appropriate a fuller conversation about implications for the BIP.

Plan revision — repeated incidents within a window typically trigger BIP review (cross-ref 05.13).

9\. Prone restraint and the special-risk question

Prone restraint — face-down hold — has been associated with deaths in school and residential settings, particularly in conjunction with weight on the chest, certain medical conditions, and prolonged duration. The federal 2012 guidance recommends that prone restraint be prohibited; many states have done so by law. Most contemporary training programs have eliminated or restricted prone techniques.

If your district authorizes any prone restraint, the training should be thorough and the contraindications (cardiac conditions, respiratory conditions, obesity, certain medications, certain skeletal conditions) absolutely clear. The conservative position increasingly held in the field is that prone restraint should not be used in schools at all.

10\. The case for minimization

The strongest contemporary view in the field — supported by a growing body of evidence — is that restraint and seclusion should be minimized aggressively in schools. Programs and districts that have invested in prevention have seen dramatic reductions, often by 80%+ from baseline, with no increase in adult or student injury and frequently with decreases.

10.1 What enables minimization

Strong antecedent strategy implementation (cross-ref 05.04).

Function-based behavior support (cross-ref 05.01).

Trauma-informed practice (cross-ref 05.14).

Strong relationships and predictable routines.

Effective team de-escalation training and practice.

Well-built BIPs with effective replacement behaviors.

Sensory regulation supports.

Adequate staffing during predictable hot spots.

Tracking of restraint use; transparency at the district and building level.

Leadership commitment to reducing use.

10.2 What works against minimization

Lack of training in alternatives.

Punitive school cultures that view restraint as appropriate consequence.

Underprepared staff in high-needs settings.

BIPs that haven't been revised when they aren't working.

Lack of debriefing or accountability.

Disproportionate use against specific student groups going unaddressed.

11\. Equity and disproportionality

OCR's Civil Rights Data Collection has consistently shown that students with disabilities, Black students, and Black students with disabilities specifically are restrained and secluded at much higher rates than would be expected based on enrollment. This is not subtle; it is well-documented and has persisted across multiple data collection cycles.

Reasons appear to include implicit bias, differences in BIP quality and implementation across schools and student groups, differences in school climate and discipline practice, and historical patterns that compound. The pattern is the responsibility of the system, not individual paras — but individual paras and supervisors are part of the system, and noticing and naming the pattern is part of changing it.

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| If you suspect disproportionate use in your buildingBring it to admin and to the supervising teacher. The district's CRDC submission is public; restraint and seclusion data by demographic group can be requested. If patterns emerge that warrant external attention, OCR complaints are an option, and Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) and other organizations support families and staff in raising civil rights concerns. |

12\. What a paraprofessional should and should not do

12.1 Should

Complete authorized training before being deployed in settings where restraint may be needed.

Maintain current certification.

Use authorized techniques only.

Stop when imminent danger resolves.

Document fully and immediately.

Participate in post-incident debriefing.

Surface concerns about disproportionate use, drift, or unsafe practice.

Seek support after — restraint events are physically and emotionally taxing.

12.2 Should not

Perform restraint or seclusion without current certification.

Use techniques outside your training.

Restrain past the imminent danger window.

Use restraint as a behavior management tool for non-dangerous behavior.

Use restraint as a substitute for a well-built BIP.

Use prone restraint where prohibited or where contraindicated for the student.

Document anything other than what actually happened.

Stay silent about practices that concern you.

13\. Common pitfalls

Treating restraint and seclusion as routine behavior management.

Skipping or rushing post-incident documentation.

Improvising techniques outside authorized training.

Going past the time limit on a hold.

Restraining a student whose plan or medical record contraindicates it.

Failing to debrief; the next incident often starts in the gap.

Not surfacing patterns of disproportionate use.

Performing restraint while emotionally activated yourself.

Treating recertification as a formality.

Letting the BIP rely on restraint rather than antecedent strategies and replacement behaviors.

14\. Resources

Federal

U.S. Department of Education — Restraint and Seclusion Resource Document — ed.gov — The 2012 federal guidance with 15 principles.

Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) — Restraint and Seclusion data — ocrdata.ed.gov — Public district-level data.

OSEP — Disciplinary Practices guidance — ed.gov — IDEA-related guidance.

Major training programs

Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) — crisisprevention.com

Ukeru Systems — ukerusystems.com

QBS Safety-Care — qbs.com

MANDT System — mandtsystem.com

Right Response — rightresponse.org

Civil rights and advocacy

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) — dredf.org

Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) — copaa.org — Advocacy on restraint and seclusion.

ASAN — Stop Hurting Kids — autisticadvocacy.org

Brief 05.10 — Escalation Cycle and De-escalation — this library

Brief 05.11 — Crisis Response — this library

Brief 14.05 — Crisis Training Programs Compared — this library

Brief 16.14 — I Witnessed a Restraint That Concerned Me — this library

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