When training staff in the use of physical restraint it is important that the techniques provided enable staff to achieve the desired outcome, i.e., the physical control of an individual with minimal risk to all concerned. Therefore, it is fundamentally important that the physical skills taught to staff complement their ability to achieve the desired effect.
Physical restraint, like any other physical activity, requires the use of various physical motor skills. Motor skills can be defined as movements that are performed with a desired goal in mind. In sporting environments this may mean achieving such aims as holding a handstand in gymnastics. In physical restraint it means achieving the aim of staff being able to use each technique to an effective standard, in other words so that the technique works, whilst minimising the risk to all concerned.
To achieve this the staff expected to undertake the activity of physical restraint must have the ability to do the skill. The Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999 - Regulation 13 (Capabilities and Training) makes this point quite clear as it states:
"Every employer shall, in entrusting tasks to his employees, take into account their capabilities as regards health and safety."
The balance therefore in developing any system of physical restraint is aiming to improve the ability of staff through training whilst designing skills and techniques that they can actually achieve in real operational situations.
Ability
When we refer to ability, we draw reference to stable and enduring traits that for the most part, are genetically determined and as such underlie an individual's skilled performance. Abilities range from visual activity to body configuration (height, weight and build), numeric ability, reaction speed, manual dexterity, kinaesthetic sensitivity, etc.
However, there is also the difference in gender to consider that we touched on earlier in this chapter. This is an important factor to consider if the training is to be provided to a predominantly female workforce, for example, expected to physically control male service users. This is something we consistently raise in relation to staffing levels in many schools and care home settings where there are generally more female staff than male.
Recent research has highlighted some fundamental differences between men and women with regard to aspects of personal ability. Therefore, although men and women should be equal in terms of their rights of opportunity and the right to exercise their full potential, men and women are definitely not identical in their innate abilities. These fundamental differences, if not addressed in a competent training package, will only serve to increase the risk to all concerned.
For example, the Allied Dunbar National Fitness Survey found that men are taller and heavier than women and that men have more active muscle tissue and an increased blood volume than females, contributing to them being faster, stronger, more powerful and having greater endurance.
A summary of some of the findings from the survey are itemised below:
§ Men and Women have the same number of muscle fibres. However, the muscle fibres in men tend to be larger and this is thought to be linked to the male hormone testosterone. As a result men tend to be stronger and more powerful than women because they have a greater lean muscle mass.
§ Men have 10% larger hearts than women therefore having a greater capacity to pump more blood and oxygen around the body to feed the increased muscle mass.
§ Men have 10% larger lungs than women resulting in a greater capacity to oxygenate the increased blood more effectively.
§ Men also have 1 - 1.5 litres of blood more than women and within the blood men have approximately 5.4 million blood cells per micro litre of blood whilst women have 4.8 million red blood cells micro litre microlitre of blood. This means that men have a greater capacity for carrying oxygen in their blood than their female counterparts.
§ Women also carry 10% more of their overall weight as fat than males. Therefore, the female heart has to work harder in order to deliver the same amount of oxygen to working muscles in a given time interval, resulting in men having more active muscle tissue than females contributing to them being faster, stronger, more powerful, having higher aerobic and anaerobic power and greater endurance, than the average female.
What this research shows is that the physical and physiological differences between the sexes means that men have disproportionate levels of strength, power and endurance than females do. In personal safety terms this means that men will be able to rely on greater reserves of strength, power and endurance during a physical conflict situation.
In the context of undertaking physical restraint this means that men will be able to rely on greater reserves of strength, power and endurance during a physical conflict situation. On that basis women who will be expected to use physical restraint will require more effective methods of control, especially if they are expected to control a male. Men, by contrast, should, generally, be able to use less force to achieve the same outcome.
Extract taken from 'Understanding Unreasonable Force' by Mark Dawes and Deborah Jones, available beginning of March 2008. |
