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About the Project

Overview

Holding Differently, Containing Distress is a 30-month research and knowledge mobilisation project funded by the Scottish Government. It has evolved out of the work of the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG), an independent, member-led, unfunded coalition comprised primarily of more than 70 service providers, along with others, working to effect change in relation to physical restraint in Scottish residential child care.

The project started in December 2025 and will run through the end of May 2028. Its primary function is research, with a smaller knowledge mobilisation component explained below. Laura Steckley leads the project, Cecile Remy is the half-time Research and Knowledge Mobilisation Associate, members of CELCIS offer targeted support, and members of SPRAG and the wider sector contribute through different levels of engagement.

While the project focuses on physical restraint, it is also concerned with emotional holding: holding that occurs through relationships, reflection, care practices and service cultures. Infants and children learn to regulate their emotions through physical holding and soothing, as well as being “held in mind” by their primary caregivers. This kind of holding has sometimes been missing for children and young people who come to live in residential child care. It is necessary to understand better the complexities involved in both forms of holding so that those complexities can be made more manageable for all involved. Ultimately, effective emotional holding can render physical restraint less necessary, or even unnecessary.

Why this Project Is Needed

There have long been serious concerns about physical restraint in residential child care, both in Scotland and internationally. These concerns include abuses of children’s rights, re-traumatisation, restraint-related injuries and even deaths. At the same time, there continue to be occasions when less problematic interventions to prevent harm, such as careful care planning or the use of de-escalating language, are ineffective or not possible.

Moreover, anecdotal accounts of damaging consequences of not restraining, and of service efforts to eliminate restraint, are emerging. These include injuries to children, injuries to staff, the criminalisation of children through police involvement, and increased placement breakdowns.

Scotland is at a critical juncture that poses both risks and opportunities. While physical restraint in residential child care has become the focus of attention in the media and in social policy, service efforts to reduce or eliminate its use are still poorly understood. Misinformation and simplistic solutions must be met with a rigorous evidence base and robust, collaborative knowledge mobilisation. Without considered and considerable intervention, restraint-related harms and unintended damaging consequences will be exacerbated, with children at greatest risk.

Galvanised by restraint-related concerns as well as emerging unintended consequences, Laura and members of CELCIS’ Improving Care Experiences Team formed the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG) in 2019. Through regular meetings and short-life working groups (SLWGs), SPRAG has shared and developed good practice; challenged simplistic renderings of physical restraint and related issues; increased consistency of definitions in reporting to the Care Inspectorate; responded to related legislative consultations; and developed a model for increasing the reflective capacity of practitioners and organisational cultures (RALF). SPRAG also developed a research agenda, and this project is a result of that agenda, building on earlier pilot work.

While physical restraint is the project’s primary focus, understanding and addressing the related changes that are happening, and that still need to happen, will necessarily improve care cultures and therefore the care experiences of children and young people.

Research and Knowledge Mobilisation

The overarching aim of the Holding Differently project is to strengthen the evidence base about physical restraint in residential child care in Scotland and to develop resources that support related practice and policy development. Put simply, it is about better understanding physical restraint so that Scotland can more effectively develop and support its residential child care workforce to hold children differently.

Research

Research is the primary function of Holding Differently. The project’s research aim has two parts:

  1. To ascertain, to the greatest extent possible, the current situation in Scottish residential child care in relation to the practice of physical restraint and efforts to reduce its use.
  2. To identify, explore and explain key factors involved in reducing or eliminating the use of physical restraint and in the development of emotional holding.

The two research phases will be carried out sequentially, with each phase addressing one component of the research aim.

  • Phase 1: a survey of the residential child care workforce in Scotland, alongside analysis of administrative data currently held by the Care Inspectorate when services notify individual instances of physical restraint.
  • Phase 2: an appreciative enquiry involving five services, exploring their progress with restraint reduction and, more broadly, the development of practice around effective responses to distressed behaviour and serious, imminent harm.

Knowledge Mobilisation

By “knowledge mobilisation” we mean useful action, and this takes two forms:

  1. Knowledge from the sector, and beyond, helps to shape the research design and dissemination through dedicated SPRAG short-life working groups.
  2. Findings from the research are co-developed into accessible, actionable resources for Scotland’s residential child care sector and beyond.

We want these resources to support the training and professional development of the Scottish residential child care workforce. You can find out more about this phase on the Project timeline.

An independent advisory group has also been formed, bringing together experts in residential child care, restraint reduction and research to offer advice, support and challenge to the project team. The advisory group will also help facilitate the dissemination of findings and resources.