Everyone working for a residential child care provider has a perspective worth hearing. This September, Holding Differently, Containing Distress — an important research project — is asking the workforce to contribute to a better understanding of physical restraint in Scotland.

Holding Differently, Containing Distress is exploring how physical restraint is used and learning from the sector about successes and challenges in reducing and eliminating its use.

As part of our Amplifying the Voice of the Sector series, Geco Connect is helping raise awareness of the forthcoming survey and encouraging people across residential child care to take part.

What is Holding Differently, Containing Distress?

Holding Differently, Containing Distress is a collaborative research project between the University of Strathclyde, the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG), CELCIS, and the residential child care sector. The project is funded by the Scottish Government.

Together, they aim to learn from practice: where progress is being made, what remains difficult, and what the sector’s experiences can tell us about restraint reduction and elimination. By bringing together university researchers, sector specialists and policy makers, the project aims to ground national conversations about restraint reduction in the realities of everyday practice.

We previously introduced the project and its dedicated website. The forthcoming survey provides an opportunity for the workforce to contribute directly to this research.

Who is being asked to take part?

According to the project’s promotional materials, everyone employed by a residential child care provider will be sent a survey link in late September 2026.

That includes education support workers, residential child care workers, teachers and managers. The invitation extends across roles, recognising that different responsibilities bring different experiences and insights. This broad approach helps ensure the research reflects real, day-to-day practice across every level of the workforce, rather than only the perspectives of senior or specialist roles.

If you work for a residential child care provider, look out for the survey invitation through your organisation.

Why your participation matters

Understanding physical restraint requires listening to the people who work within residential child care every day.

Their experiences can help explain the circumstances services face, the approaches that are making a difference and the barriers that remain. Hearing from across the workforce can help build a fuller picture of practice, including perspectives that might otherwise be missed.

This is an opportunity to contribute to research concerned with children and young people’s experiences, how distress is understood and responded to, and the work involved in reducing and eliminating restraint. By taking part, staff help ensure the findings reflect genuine, day-to-day sector experience rather than assumptions made from outside residential child care.

Help spread the word

You can support the project before the survey arrives by making colleagues aware of it and sharing the project website.

For managers and service leaders, a team meeting, staff noticeboard or internal newsletter could provide a useful opportunity to highlight the forthcoming invitation. Displaying the project poster can also help reach colleagues across different roles and shifts. Sharing accurate information now, for example through a team meeting or staff noticeboard, can help colleagues feel confident about what to expect when the survey link arrives in late September.

Once the survey link is shared, please consider taking part and encouraging colleagues to do the same.

At Geco Connect, we want to use our platform to give important sector research greater visibility. We encourage residential child care providers and their teams to help this invitation reach as many people as possible.

Your experience matters. Please look out for the survey when it arrives in late September 2026, and help spread the word across your team.

Visit the Holding Differently, Containing Distress project website