Protective (physical) intervention:

                           a  process of communication

Hands on personal safety (breakaways) and protective intervention (physical intervention) strategies are among the most misunderstood aspects of caring and support in contemporary times.  Within most training circles it has been customary to divorce 'breakaways'  and 'physical intervention', (we refuse to embrace the abhorrent term 'control and restraint')  from other strategies such as the pro-active aspects of prevention and avoidance and non-verbal (visual) and verbal communication.  The Shindo Trust believes this to be a fundamental mistake.

Our involvement with the caring professions for over thirty years has led us to some specific conclusions about coping with behaviour that challenges the services. One such conclusion has been to recognise that the processes of ‘breakaway’ and ‘physical intervention’ are a communicative process.  Shindo views all physical response as a process of tactile communication, for touch very much represents a fundamental means of communicating which should never be divorced from any guiding or redirectional influence that such a technique might have.

We realise there may be a feeling in those exposed to this idea that it is a ploy to appear to be politically correct, a semantic game, however, be assured it is far more than that.  It is true, we do feel concern about the use of such terms as 'react', 'control' and 'restraint' and insist on the use of the terms 'response', 'guide' and 'hold' to distinguish and emphasise the Project 5 peaceful response philosophy which we have been pioneering since 1976. The Shindo Trust is acutely aware of how the careful and consistent use of appropriate semantics engenders feelings of empathy and a deeper level of caring, even when members of staff are faced with potentially injurious violent situations.  The terms used within the Project 5 system always have peaceful and caring connotations.

To understand that physical response and intervention is in fact a process of  tactile communication and a part of the non-verbal communication continuum opens a way of thinking about personal safety and protective intervention that helps us to realise consistently empathic and peaceful responses in a wide range of situations.

This reveals the reality that the act of touch can actually initiate a communicative situation, a fact denied if we insist that visual and verbal means of communication should always precede 'physical intervention'.

No one of the primary communications consistently occurs before the others in terms of sequence or time.  What line of communication initiates an inter-personal exchange will depend upon the situation.

For simplistic example, if you are busily engrossed in an animated conversation and in order to attract your attention, a colleague taps you upon the shoulder; then tactile communication precedes the other forms.

If you hear your name being called by a colleague who is trying to attract your attention, and you turn to see who it is, it is the verbal means of communication that initiates the process of passing information one to another.

When someone enters the room and approaches you to ask a question, it is the visual medium that normally precedes the other forms of communication.

Almost certainly in a communicative exchange, there will be a visual appraisal, a verbal exchange, and perhaps a handshake by way of affirming the relationship in a tactile manner.

 This reveals a fundamental precept within the Project 5 system, that tactile communication can be introduced very early in a communicative exchange, and particularly in the case of behaviour that challenges the service.  It is fundamentally wrong to suppose that touch should be avoided until all other forms of communication have been tried.

The perceived need for 'Control and Restraint'

Some staff groups have felt that they have a need for such techniques as take downs, floor pins, and pain compliance releases.  However, in the experience of The Shindo Trust, such strategies can rarely be justified. 

We are often asked how to release from hair or clothing pulls, neck chokes, and other difficult situations.  Yet, with minimal training in positional awareness, an understanding of the tactile zone and appropriate use of tactile communication we have found that staff can pre-empt such assaults thus avoiding the need to affect a release.

It is our wish that service provider’s move away from all aversive methods of response and develop a higher skill level in strictly peaceful and caring responses.

Tactile communication demands higher skill levels in staying with the person in a guiding or redirecting manner.  As a crisis intervention (until better strategies have been identified) we ask for communicative holds that allow for some freedom of movement but in a way that permits of some protectiveness and sense of yielding.  The idea of holding is to comfort, calm and protect the person displaying challenging behaviour or others in the environment.  All Project 5 holding strategies (special crisis intervention training); impart a sense of unconditional love, empathy, and sympathy for the individual so being held.  We strongly recommend that all staff members are introduced to the Project 5 Peaceful Response System as an introduction to the management of behaviour that challenges the service.

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