When a woman or girl is admitted to a mental health unit, her expectation should be of a caring, supportive environment where she can get the treatment she needs to get better. Unfortunately, we now know from Agenda’s latest research on restraint that many are instead in an environment where physical force has become shockingly routine.
Agenda is an alliance of more than 70 organisations campaigning on behalf of women and girls at risk. We decided to ask for data about the use of restraint because previous research we carried out on mental health trusts’ strategies and policies – as part of our Women in Mindcampaign – showed that most were failing to take into account women’s specific needs.
If this was the case with strategy and policy, what was the reality in service delivery? We submitted a freedom of information request to all mental health trusts in England to find out.
Our research showed that one in five women and girls were physically restrained in mental health settings and that the use of face-down restraint continues to be widespread, with women and girls treated this way on thousands of occasions.
Such frequent use of restraint is particularly concerning because of the potential it has to re-traumatise the many women and girls who have experienced abuse and violence. In some trusts, restraint against women and girls was commonplace, with three-quarters being physically restrained, and up to a third restrained face-down.
[For more of this story, written by Katherine Sacks-Jones, go to https://www.theguardian.com/co...amp;utm_medium=email]
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