Summary
CCTV footage from Whitefield School in London shows autistic children being abused in padded “calming rooms” between 2014-2017, including being shoved, restrained, left in distress, or forced to sit in vomit.
Police investigated but brought no charges, leaving families to cope with trauma. Over 40 children were affected, with some developing PTSD or epilepsy.
Safeguarding investigations revealed six staff members abused students, but they weren’t referred for banning. Parents accuse authorities of a cover-up, while calls grow for stricter regulation of seclusion practices in special schools across the UK.
Watch: Parents react to CCTV footage of their children being abused at Whitefield School
Are we seriously doing reaction videos now?
While misconduct may have occurred here I have to mention that these rooms are highly important to the safety of these kids.
At special needs schools you can find many individuals who are having a bad day, and they can be incredibly violent to themselves and those around them. I personally know dozens of women who have come home from work with cuts, bruises, sprains and even broken limbs over the years. And these are people who were all professionally trained to hold the children in a very specific manor to both restrain and not harm them at the same time.
That doesn’t make it okay to do the things described here, but once it becomes politicized, you can find people who know nothing about the situation making it way worse for everyone.
An example of an obvious problem here: no one should ever be locked in these rooms, and an aide should always be watching them until they have calmed down from their outburst. The fact that locks even exist on those doors was just a ticking time bomb for something bad to happen to a child.
I used to work as an IA, you’re right about the need for safe places for kids to calm down from agitated states. We used to essentially wrap them in gym floor padding until they calmed themselves. We had kids that were 20 years old and 200lbs, it’s not easy to keep them, the other students, and yourself safe when they’re upset.
It’s not difficult to empathize with them when they’d get upset either. Imagine being unable to talk to articulate what is bothering or hurting you, that kind of agitation is bound to build up until it comes to a boil. It was unfortunately all too common that members of the staff were not cut out for the work and only there for a check rather than having a passion to help.
That is horrific…
Whitefield School was rated as outstanding until, in 2017, Ofsted discovered the use of bare, padded rooms without windows to seclude children.
But the existence of the CCTV footage did not become public until 2021, when the BBC learned an investigation had been launched after the discovery of a box of USB memory sticks containing 500 hours of disturbing footage from inside the rooms
Can they not be sued?
