Hunger striker protests use of physical restraints in group homes

After being fired from a group home near Ottawa for speaking out against child restraints, Jane Scharf took her protest to the streets. The youth-care worker, who began a hunger strike June 17, is demanding laws to monitor the use of physical restraints and better protect children against abuse in group homes. Current policy prohibits the use of such restraints unless the safety of workers or others is at risk, but Scharf says they are used frequently. “They're dangerous and they're not effective,” Scharf said as she sat outside the office of the Ministry of Community and Social Services in Ottawa, where she is sometimes accompanied by other members of the Coalition to End Child Restraints (endchildrestraints .tripod .com). “Restraints escalate behaviour,” she says. “They don't control it.” There have been 2 recent deaths at Ontario group homes related to the use of physical restraints (CMAJ 2002;166[7]:944). In 1998, 13-year-old Stephanie Jobin suffocated while being restrained, and in 1999 13-year-old William Edgar was asphyxiated. Following an inquest into Edgar's death, the province pledged to regulate strictly the use of physical restraints on children. An inquest into Jobin's death is being scheduled. — CMAJ