EDMONTON—The provincial government is failing to address its policy of allowing children to be locked in seclusion rooms, parents and advocacy groups say.

At a press conference on Friday, advocates who have been working with Education Minister David Eggen slammed the government for draft guidelines that they say maintain the status quo on the controversial policy, which allows students with disabilities to be physically restrained and locked alone in small rooms.

“I can tell you that it angers me. And it makes me feel like I’m simply being used as a symbol by this government to make the appearance that they’re listening to parents,” said Marcy Oakes, a member of the working group who is suing the government and a school district for locking her son in a seclusion room.

“It breaks my heart to know that more children and families are going to be affected and nothing will have changed.”

Eggen emailed a statement in response to the advocates’ concerns Friday.

He said he agrees seclusion rooms should be banned, but that the working group needs to continue working on solutions.

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“As a parent and a teacher myself, I’ve frankly been disturbed by some of the things parents are sharing about their family’s experiences with seclusion rooms. We can and must do better for our kids. After initial discussions with the working group I established on this matter, I am convinced that seclusion rooms must be banned,” Eggen wrote.

“That said, we know that we need to find a safe space for students that are struggling and need therapeutic supports in school. That is why our working group will carry on with this important work.”

Last September, Oakes and Warren Henschel launched a lawsuit against Elk Island Public Schools and the provincial government after they said that in 2015, their 12-year-old son — who has autism and is non-verbal — was locked naked in a seclusion room at a school east of Edmonton and ended up covered in his own feces.

Eggen assembled an advisory group to draw up a “coherent and strict” policy for the use of seclusion rooms, also known as timeout rooms, and said he hoped to have new guidelines in place in a matter of weeks.

But parents and others on the working group say their input and recommendations have been ignored.

Advocates said Friday that the proposed guidelines still allow for the use of seclusion rooms with parental permission, which they argue will allow parents to be coerced into agreeing to seclusion and restraints.

They argue these practices cause emotional and physical trauma in children, and are calling for enforceable rules, rather than guidelines.

Trish Bowman, CEO of disability advocacy organization Inclusion Alberta, said she was part of the group that met with the minister on Dec. 19 when they found “virtually nothing had changed” from the existing guidelines that were written in 2002.

The group outlined its concerns in a letter to Eggen on Jan. 9, and Bowman said the government never responded.

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“Guidelines have been in place since 2002 and have failed horribly to protect children,” Bowman said.

“The new guidelines proposed by Alberta Education effectively change nothing from the existing guidelines, and are essentially a rewrite of the status quo.”

Bowman wants to see an outright ban on seclusion rooms and timeout rooms, and a requirement for schools to report to the government when they use restraints on a child.

Inclusion Alberta launched a survey last September to gauge the prevalence and severity of the use of seclusion rooms and restraints in schools across the province, and released those results Friday with responses from about 400 parents.

Among the findings, 80 per cent of parents reported signs of emotional trauma or stress in their child who was subjected to seclusion, and more than three-quarters said they never gave consent for their child to be restrained or secluded.

More than half said their child was secluded for more than 40 minutes, and 15 per cent said their child was in a seclusion room for longer than three hours at a time.

“These findings and others clearly demonstrate that seclusion and restraint are being used unethically and, we would contend, immorally,” Bowman said.

The report includes quotes from parents who call the practice “medieval” and say their children developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychological issues as a result of repeated seclusion.

Trina Trigg said her daughter with developmental disabilities was separated from her classmates in Grade 3 and became alienated, causing increasing isolation and trauma.

“The fact that Alberta Education continues to allow children with disabilities to be locked in seclusion or confined to dedicated timeout rooms, refusing to ensure my daughter’s safety and that of every child with disabilities, terrifies me as a parent,” Trigg said.

In British Columbia, advocacy group Inclusion B.C. commissioned a report in 2013 to gather data and stories from parents of children being restrained and put in seclusion rooms, and found similar results. That prompted the B.C. government to draw up a set of voluntary guidelines.

When the group repeated the survey four years later, it found little had changed.

Dr. Keith Goulden, associate professor of development pediatrics at the University of Alberta and a former member of the working group, agreed that guidelines are not enough because they are already failing children.

Goulden said in a press release that “ironclad rules” are needed, and should come with accurate reporting and real consequences for breaking said rules.

With files from Omar Mosleh

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