NAPPI-9 Restraint Skill Evaluation Criteria
If you must put your hands on other people, either for their own safety or the safety of others, and you have an obligation to avoid or minimize harm, then any skills that you plan to apply should be assessed against a specific standard. With more than 30 years in the business of teaching people how to handle difficult, challenging and even dangerous behaviors, we feel uniquely qualified to present the standards we use to keep our training as safe as possible. We recommend you use it when evaluating your restraint system.
1. Does the technique have a minimum impact on the person being restrained?
Is there smooth motion, limited limb movement and just enough control to make the situation safer? That is minimum impact. A poor technique transfers energy into the other person’s body—jolts, squeezes, twists, pain, and joint locks for example—and consequently the person being restrained may get startled, injured, re-traumatized or reenergized. This can cause even further resistance or an unpredictable reaction.
2. Does the technique have a minimum impact on the environment?
Is the technique quick, quiet, and done with small motions? This reduces the impact on everyone else. If, instead, you “jolt” someone else’s body, others in the environment will see it – and react. Involving others in the environment heightens fear, trauma, resistance, and chaos.
3. Does the technique have a large margin of safety?
The technique should be inspected at every step to ascertain what the worst possible injury would be if everything fell apart. Often, skills are delivered as if the actual scenario were likely to unfold as planned and as practiced in class. In fact, this almost never occurs. Only select the skills with no catastrophic results.
4. Is the technique applicable to a variety of situations?
Can the block be used to stay safe from punches from the left and right, as well as from thrown objects, attempted chokes, or grabs to the face, hair, and glasses? Don’t include more than one block in your course. Too many skills take longer to learn and waste valuable practice time.
5. Is the technique necessary?
If more than one technique is aimed at the same problem, eliminate one of the techniques. People will gain higher competency levels if they practice only one skill per problem.
6. Does the technique stem from a natural reaction?
Almost everyone will react to an attack in a predetermined way. If I throw something at you, you will react automatically by putting both your hands up and turning your head. Therefore, a good blocking technique’s first element should be to put both hands up. This enhances skill-building and emergency recall. Any blocking technique which requires unlearning the natural response will require many more repetitions, and slow the emergency response.
7. Is the technique easy to learn and recall?
The technique should have as few steps as possible—three or four in the case of self protection skills, five or six in the case of a holding/restraint sequence. The skills should not require staff to recall left and right actions – no one will remember such a fine distinction without a lot of practice time.
8. Can most employees perform the techniques?
Can the technique be done by people who are smaller, older, overweight, strength-limited or inexperienced? Get a feel for the coordination, strength, speed, and stamina requirements of each technique. If 8 out of 10 cannot successfully perform the self-protection techniques, they should be redesigned. If 5 out of 10 cannot successfully perform the restraint techniques, the techniques should be redesigned.
9. Is the technique effective?
Effective means that everyone is safer because the technique was used.
It
should not be based solely on the level of control achieved. If everyone is not safer, the technique should be redesigned. Therefore, a technique that frightens, traumatizes, hurts, injures, or humiliates cannot be called effective – even f it allows good control.
