Advocacy for Inclusion has made a submission to the Office of the Senior Practitioner regarding proposed regulation under the Senior Practitioner Act. The submission emphasises AFI’s strong stance that restrictive practices are a violation of the human rights of people with disability. We welcome the move by the Senior Practitioner to prohibit some practices. However, we reiterate that all restrictive practices must be prohibited in the ACT. We recommend the Office of the Senior Practitioner regularly update the list of prohibited practices, particularly in light of findings from the Disability Royal Commission. Additionally, there must be strong and proportionate penalties imposed for the use of prohibited practices in the ACT. Finally, we recommend that the list of prohibited practices identified for early prohibition includes:
- Incentivising and/or disincentivising behaviour using financial rewards or punishments
- Force-feeding or depriving a child or young person of food
- Restraint and/or seclusion of children and young people
- Non-consensual or coercive sterilisation, menstrual suppression, contraception and abortion
- Removal of the right to communicate by removing people’s access to phones, devices, communications media, or augmentative and alternative communicative (AAC) devices
- Practices related to degradation or vilification, or humiliation