This report provides guidance to the Disability Royal Commission in relation to the Commission’s objective to reduce and eliminate restrictive practices. Restrictive practices are at odds with the human rights of people with disability and represent a significant form of violence and coercion. The following definition of restrictive practices has been devised by the authors of the report based on the findings presented in the report, and is for use in the report and elsewhere:

Restrictive practices are legally authorised and/or socially and professionally sanctioned violence that targets people with disability on a discriminatory basis and are at odds with the human rights of people with disability. Restrictive practices include, but are not limited to, chemical, mechanical, physical and environmental restraint and seclusion, guardianship, forced sterilisation, menstrual suppression and anti-libidinal medication, financial management, involuntary mental health treatment, and other non-consensual or coercive interventions said to be undertaken for protective, behavioural or medical reasons.

The research project adopted a disability human rights methodology. The project included elements that were both participatory and emancipatory: involving representatives from Disabled Peoples Organisations in all phases of the project and seeking explicitly to arrive at conclusions that realise the rights of people with disability.

Key findings:

• Restrictive practices are at odds with international human rights obligations
• Restrictive practices strip people with disability of dignity
• Restrictive practice occur within an ecological system of violence, coercion and control
• Positive behaviour support has a mixed and inconclusive evidence-base