Restraint Reduction Network
The launch of the new Restraint Reduction Network Training Standards has been one of the most significant changes to training design, development and delivery in the last 30 years. In particular, to those training programmes that focus on the prevention and management of distress and behaviours of concern.
For the very first time a national training baseline has been established. Now any training with a restrictive intervention component that is delivered in NHS commissioned services for people with mental health conditions, learning disabilities, autistic people and people living with dementia in England, must be in line with the standards. It will be mandatory for training providers to be certificated under the new scheme from April 2020. Though not mandatory across wider social care and education sectors at present, the Standards have been designed to embrace all sectors, with a view to ensure all sectors and staff supporting individuals are coming from the same knowledge, values and skill base.
So, is your training in line with the new standards?
More pointedly how do you find out?
In order to make the process of comparing existing provision against the new standard simple, a benchmarking tool has been developed with the Restraint Reduction Network Community of Practice.
It allows commissioners to audit current training provision.
Its flexible design allows individuals within training teams to peer review one another’s delivery.
It also means that individuals in receipt of care and support, experts by their own lived experience, will now know what training should be provided and can ask questions of an organisation from an informed perspective.
The tool can be used equally effectively by families whose loved ones face restrictive interventions or regulators or inspectors tasked with reviewing arrangements, to be able to establish whether the training provided to staff is aligned to the Training Standards.
The tool has been created to be enabling, and to support change. It can be used to pinpoint the precise component parts of the training that require updating to meet the Standards. It includes an action planning section to facilitate that change.
With an overarching ambition of reducing the use of restrictive interventions, the Standards ensure all staff who receive physical skills training in breakaway and restraint techniques also receive a thorough grounding in preventative theory as well as recognising the valuable role of relationships in minimising distress, of making people more trauma informed and to ensure they have a broader understanding of a wider range of lower level strategies to reduce escalating distress. Central to all is the use of data to inform evidence based practice.
You can start using the benchmarking tool today by downloading it here.
Lee Hollins, RRN and BILD