Inside a Training Course Where School Workers Learn How to Physically Restrain Students

ProPublica Illinois reporting fellow Lakeidra Chavis and I spent two days watching a Crisis Prevention Institute, or CPI, training for educators in the Chicago suburbs.
We saw school workers learn about verbal de-escalation and how to safely break free if a student grabs their hair or bites them. We saw how a CPI trainer walked them through standing and seated restraints and how to decide what type to use.
And then, when it was time to practice physical restraints, the trainers leading the class pulled out mats.
The trainees got paired up to go through the motions of restraining a child: standing, sitting, how to do a “takedown” to the floor. Everyone else there had taken TCI courses before, knew the material and was preparing to teach the methods back at the residential facilities, psychiatric hospitals and schools where they worked.
https://www.propublica.org/article/i...smith-richards