Decision Report 201300746

Summary

Mr C complained about the level of support and help that school staff provided to his child, who had additional support needs as well as other disorders. Mr C also said that staff (who he said were not properly trained) had inappropriately restrained his child, and that had adequate support been in place, events could have been avoided. He was particularly unhappy with the handling of one specific incident. Mr C also complained that the council had failed to reasonably investigate and respond to his concerns.

We did not uphold Mr C's complaints. Our investigation found that staff had used physical restraint on one occasion when staff at the school assessed that the child was a danger to themselves and to others, and the council said minimum force was used. We recognised that this had been an extremely stressful and upsetting situation, but found no evidence that school staff had failed to act in line with the risk assessment in place. We also found no evidence to support Mr C's position that physical restraint was used on a number of occasions. The council were satisfied that, prior to the child's needs escalating, staff had been sufficiently trained to meet those needs and had put support in place to do that. We were satisfied that the school responded appropriately to the incidents Mr C complained about and that as a result of the complaint the council had carried out several reviews and used his child's case to highlight learning and improve practice. We were also satisfied that the council had carried out a detailed investigation into Mr C's concerns and had provided reasonable responses to the points he raised.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• consider their current procedures to decide whether incident reports should be shared with parents.