Following the publication of the Department of Education’s “Understanding Behaviour of Concern” guidelines, AsIAm and Inclusion Ireland, alongside other advocacy groups, met with departmental officials as part of a pre-scheduled meeting of the Special and Inclusive Education Forum on Friday.
Once again, we raised significant concerns regarding the reporting mechanism on the use of restraint, set out in the guidelines, including in relation to its compliance with Children First legislation, public sector duty and international human rights obligations, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We raised a number of questions to the Department on the steps they have taken to ensure the reporting mechanism is lawful and robust and unfortunately received no satisfactory response or meaningful engagement with our concerns. We expressed our regret that the Department offered no meeting or reassurance, after we put our concerns in writing to the Department in October.
We are particularly concerned that the Department continues to speak about the need to equally respect all perspectives and progress change incrementally when the matter at hand relates to the safeguarding of disabled young people. This approach strikes us as neither rights based nor child centred and does not proactively ensure the safety, and access to justice, of children most at risk of abuse.
Following this meeting, we will continue to engage with the political system, including the new Minister when they are appointed, to ensure the reporting mechanism is reviewed by a recognised child protection expert prior to coming into operation in September. In this regard, we are also considering what other options or steps our organisations can take to vindicate the rights of those we represent.
