Using Physical interventions

A physical intervention is a physical action, often a restraint, which is used by school staff on a student. Physical interventions are used as a last resort when other de-escalation methods (such as reasoning with the student) have failed.

Defining physical intervention methods

Intervention methods can be defined by going to Students > Behaviour > Setup. You'll need the permission of School: Behaviour: Administer. If you don't have this permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to assign you it using these instructions.

Adding a physical intervention method

To add a physical intervention method: Go to the Incidents tab and and click ‘+ Add’ in the ‘Physical Intervention Methods’ section.

Add the name, then add a description, then click the Add button.

Deleting a physical intervention method

To amend or delete a physical intervention method: Select the physical intervention and press the ‘Edit’ button on the slide over. Please note, to delete the Physical Intervention Method, there must be no incidents recorded with this method.

Adding a physical intervention

To a new behaviour incident

Note: it is not possible to use the physical interventions workflow until at least one physical intervention method has been defined.

A physical intervention can be logged at the same time as logging a behaviour incident. The students marked as involved in a physical intervention must also be marked as involved in the behaviour incident.

• If a physical intervention has been recorded in the behaviour incident, the user will be taken to the incident summary and will be able to fill in a narrative.
• If a member of staff is marked as ‘involved’ in a physical intervention, they will be alerted and asked to provide a witness statement.

To an existing behaviour incident

A physical intervention can be added to an existing behaviour incident by clicking ‘+ Add’ in the Physical Interventions section of the behaviour incident screen.

Adding a narrative

After a physical intervention has been logged, a banner on the behaviour incident screen will remind the staff member that they need to provide a narrative.

Clicking on the banner’s links will open a slide over and allow them to add a narrative.

Witnesses

Adding a witness for a physical intervention

Witnesses can be added to a physical intervention by selecting the physical intervention from the behaviour incident screen and selecting the ‘Add Witness’ button. When a member of staff is selected as a witness, they will be notified.

Responding as a witness

If a member of staff is marked as a witness, they will be notified via Arbor’s notifications centre, and via email. When the user clicks on the notification, they will be taken to the behaviour incident screen and a banner will instruct them to add a witness statement.