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In my setting that i work at we have a child with behaviour problems The child continually hurts staff members and other children. Today the child hit a staff member repeatedly and then pinched and left marks and scratches and left marks then she followed this behaviour with head butting the staff member. Should the marks on the staff members hand be written in the accident book and if so should that staff member write it in or another staff member. If the Child hurts another child then we do write it in the accident book but i wanted to double check should we note it for staff members as well.

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we have a child who hits kicks and punches staff, this child has complex needs and his interactions are noted daily on special observation sheets, any injuries to staff are noted in the indecent book rather than accident book. Our child is currently receiving outside agency help and transitioning to infants school in September, hopefully your child has been referred so you can receive support as it can be upsetting day in day out . x

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IMO behaviour like this needs to be recorded in both the accident book (for the injured party) and in the behaviour book for the perpatrator. You are able to restrain a child if they are going to damage themselves/someone else or do damage (your lea may be able to send you on a course for this) Is this child being monitored closely, do they have 1-1 assistance? are they being assessed?

why didn't the staff member move away???

Yes you should always record staff accidents...it is against health and safety law not to. (and to be honest they are much more likely to claim against you!!)

This little one is obviously very unhappy about something! :(

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Hi yes the child has 1-1 assistance and staff are unable to move away due to the child then hurting other children we have support for this and are using the "Stop" lots with the child. We do not have a behaviour book is the a compulsory thing or just an adversary thing.

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We would record this in an accident book to record the injuries and an incident book as it is a behavioural incident rather than an accidental injury.

For example, if a child tripped over and knocked over another child, both getting hurt this is accidental and any injuries would be reported in the accident book. But if a child delibareately pushes over another child and they bump their head, this is reported in the incident book as it wasn't accidental. We use the same recording / reporting process for adults and children.

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from the statutory framework....

 

3.51 Providers must not give corporal punishment to a child. Providers must take all reasonable steps to ensure that corporal punishment is not given by any person who cares for or is in regular contact with a child, or by any person living or working in the premises where care is provided. Any early years provider who fails to meet these requirements commits an offence. A person will not be taken to have used corporal punishment (and therefore will not have committed an offence), where physical intervention

24 was taken for the purposes of averting immediate danger of personal injury to any person (including the child) or to manage a child’s behaviour if absolutely necessary. Providers, including childminders, must keep a record of any occasion where physical intervention is used, and parents and/or carers must be informed on the same day, or as soon as reasonably practicable.

 

 

Having had many inspections in the past I have always been asked if i record these incidents. It is part of your safeguarding proceedures too.

Parents need to be made aware of the difficulties you are having ...although this is dificult with sen children i really think it needs to be recorded as it may give you evidence too. Would it not be possible for the assistant to move the child...or move the other children? Have you done an abc chart to work out why this child is behaving like this ...or have you worked this out already? Do you have a quiet area where they could go? or cover a table with a cloth so that they can go in there to chill out. (so sorry lots of questions...just trying to help :rolleyes: )

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from the statutory framework....

 

3.51 Providers must not give corporal punishment to a child. Providers must take all reasonable steps to ensure that corporal punishment is not given by any person who cares for or is in regular contact with a child, or by any person living or working in the premises where care is provided. Any early years provider who fails to meet these requirements commits an offence. A person will not be taken to have used corporal punishment (and therefore will not have committed an offence), where physical intervention

24 was taken for the purposes of averting immediate danger of personal injury to any person (including the child) or to manage a child’s behaviour if absolutely necessary. Providers, including childminders, must keep a record of any occasion where physical intervention is used, and parents and/or carers must be informed on the same day, or as soon as reasonably practicable.

 

 

Having had many inspections in the past I have always been asked if i record these incidents. It is part of your safeguarding procedures too.

Parents need to be made aware of the difficulties you are having ...although this is difficult with sen children i really think it needs to be recorded as it may give you evidence too. Would it not be possible for the assistant to move the child...or move the other children? Have you done an abc chart to work out why this child is behaving like this ...or have you worked this out already? Do you have a quiet area where they could go? or cover a table with a cloth so that they can go in there to chill out. (so sorry lots of questions...just trying to help :rolleyes: )

Hi I am not the manager of the setting. The child is very heavy and bulky so the child is hard to pick up and move. we have been told to try and use distraction when an incident occurs but this doesn't always work. We do know what is causing the problems but can't go into that as confidentiality. what is an abc chart?? we use the book corner as a quiet corner as well but we are outside more often now the weather is better.

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An abc chart is an 'antecedant, behaviour consequence chart...so you would plot the behaviour /what happened before and what came after. It helps to identify why the behaviour is occuring. This can be for many reasons... i suspect when you say the 'why' is confidential you are talking about the BIG picture! I am talking about what sets him /her off....is it a noise, or a smell , or someone taking a toy, or someone using the word no? if you know this detail then you can put things in to place to minimise the negative effects.It would be rare for this child just to lash out for no reason but sometimes it is a little thing that can start it. If possible try to provide an area where he/she can go out of view of others so a small den/cubbie may work better than just an area...everyone can still see him/her from there and he/she can see the whole world which may be too much! :huh: Even outside i would try and find a 'little'place for them.

sorry realise you didn't come on here to talk about this...can't help myself :blink:

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Oh.,I am in a school nursery. Our School policy says any child who injures another child is sent home that day. Then parents have to have meeting with school before they come back in. Very clear line in the sand on that. No exceptions. Very important to victims and to their parents that the attackers are dealt with in the same way. Have recently attend restraint training. Absolute must that any incidents of physical restraint are recorded. Would be part of evidence in case it goes to court. Also would be part of your evidence if you were going to get extra help for the child and provide evidence that he setting wasn't meeting their needs.

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Can I ask dreamgirl what age your youngest are because I'm not understanding how sending that child home is helpful to anyone. Surely if you've got fully trained practitioners in your setting the answer isn't to remove the problem but to deal with it ?? I'm also concerned by the use of the words attackers and victims, these are children not violent criminals. If there are no exceptions to these rules what does your setting do with SEN children as surely you can't send them home is there no behaviour management strategies ?? Sorry but I just found that post quite shocking !

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Hi we have had this problem recently and can only echo the advice already given. We recorded the incident of hurting staff (in whatever way you do for your setting) and we also took pictures of the injury. So for example if there was a scratch that drawn blood on a staff members arm we would photograph the part of the arm with the scratch (no identifying features needed) and clip that to report of incident.

 

We did lots of body blocking which keeps your more vulnerable areas eyes/ears/face/throat further away and although kicks, headbutts and punches still hurt they are less damaging.

 

I would also suggest where possible move the other children or toys that he/she might hurt herself on rather than the child that has for that moment lost control. This means everyone still stays safe but you don't have to restrain or hold the child at times when they are lashing out, keeps the times you do need to hold/restrain to absolute musts.

 

ABC approach is a very good idea as this helps to find patterns and triggers which means you may be able to stop it getting so far so quickly. Our little one had lots of incidents (I mean lots!!) so we made a chronology with the incidents recording dates, times of day, rough idea of what was happening before, what the behaviour was and who was involved it was very helpful.

 

Also worth noting when the behaviour is not happening as this might clue you in to what IS working so you can do more of that and hopefully cut down on times where anyone is getting hurt!

 

Hope that helps xxx

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Oh also meant to say that we had a complaint about our little one and the parent of another child called for exclusion, this has never happened before so I asked our LEA and inclusion team support how we should respond (also of the mind that excluding is not the answer) and we were told that there would be no support for exclusion of a child under five. Sorry just thought I would throw that in too xx

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L

Can I ask dreamgirl what age your youngest are because I'm not understanding how sending that child home is helpful to anyone. Surely if you've got fully trained practitioners in your setting the answer isn't to remove the problem but to deal with it ?? I'm also concerned by the use of the words attackers and victims, these are children not violent criminals. If there are no exceptions to these rules what does your setting do with SEN children as surely you can't send them home is there no behaviour management strategies ?? Sorry but I just found that post quite shocking !

Hello dixonnic. Completely understand where you are coming from., However if you are the parent of a child in school who has been bitten on the face by another child, whether that child has complex needs or not, you are going to feel cross, worried, anxious etc. and you would expect the school to take some action to protect your child. Even the most understanding parent might quite naturally question whether a child with extreme additional needs is in the right setting if that child is attacking other children. So to the parent, their child is the victim of an attack. And they are, aren't they? So these situations have to be dealt with head on. Also the parents of the child with the additional needs have to understand what behaviour their child is showing in the school setting. I agree that sending a child home who is on the spectrum for biting someone or hitting them over the head or grabbing them by the throat does absolutely nothing for that child. However it does a lot for the victim and their parents. Clearly with these difficult children, IEEPs are in place, statements, behaviour management strategies, outside agencies etc etc. but there is no doubt that in the schools I have worked in, we are getting an increasing number of children who have complex and significent additional needs. The teachers and support staff work tirelessly to support these children but in extreme cases, when others are injured, the school has a responsibility for the welfare of everyone- not just the child with additional needs.

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And with reference to your point about them not being violent criminals, of course they are not criminals but I have seen some VERY violent attacks on children and staff from children on the spectrum. And if you are three years old and another larger, stronger four year old is sinking their teeth into your leg.....well, it feels pretty violent at the time! We have quite a lot of autistic children coming to our mainstream school, as we have a reputation of doing very well with them, but sometimes the cost to others is extremely high.

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