Our commitment to restraint reduction

At Autism Together we believe in always looking to provide positive, person-centred support to people showing behaviours of concern, rather than using physical restraint.

While we acknowledge there may be times when restraint is necessary to prevent injury to a person we support or a staff member, we are working on ways to reduce the use of restraint wherever possible.

To this end, we have created a Restraint Action Plan, a Restraint Strategy and a Restraint Policy in order to establish what we plan to do and how we plan to accomplish restraint reduction across our services. All staff are expected to read and understand this guidance and apply it to their work.

All our Trustees and our Senior Leadership Team have received training in restraint reduction and positive behaviour support. Further restraint reduction training and information will be rolled-out to all our managers and staff by the end of 2021.

As part of this commitment we have signed up to and made a pledge to follow the guidance of Restraint Reduction Network, the world’s leading restraint reduction charity.

The Restraint Reduction Network has been promoting ways in which organisations can look at and improve their practice to reduce the reliance of restraint across the social care sector. We will also benefit from regular updates, guidance, resources and materials regarding restraint reduction through our association with this organisation.

And, thanks to support from and our membership of BILD – an organisation which specialises in helping people with complex needs – we have put a positive behaviour support (PBS) strategy in place across our organisation, with a PBS leader and 30 trained PBS coaches within our services.

If you would like to know more about our commitment to restraint reduction, please contact us on 0151 334 7510