BitePRO® Protective Clothing has been designed to protect teachers and education professionals primarily in the special education setting, from scratch, pinch and bite injuries.
Historically, bandages around the forearm, different types of padding and sporting equipment were used to prevent the risk of such injuries when working with children displaying challenging behaviour.
Why is it important to use protective clothing for special education teachers?
Children with special needs and learning difficulties are more likely to be aggressive than others. This does under no circumstances mean they are bad children. It simply means their behaviour can at times be unpredictable due to their mental illness.
For this reason, schools should conduct risk assessments for these children, and make sure the staff working with them are fully aware of the risks and are trained in how to handle them. If a risk assessment shows a need for protective clothing, then such clothing should be considered as an excellent way to mitigate the identified risk. Protective clothing can come in the form of scratch & bite resistant arm guards or jackets and tops.
Of course, all children can at times act-out, and it might be very difficult to identify and foresee the levels of violence that would warrant the use of bite protection sleeves in special needs schools.
A child diagnosed with a mental health disability might just be venting their anger just like any other child would do. But when working with children displaying challenging behaviour, there is always the higher intensity and potential loss of control. There is always the risk of injury, meaning intervention can be necessary, and this is exactly when the risk of being bitten or scratched is higher. This is also exactly why wearing protective clothing can be deemed ‘appropriate’ as they will reduce the damage that an injury will have on the teacher.
Many violence reduction techniques that professionals use to de-escalate potential violent situations and behaviours are likely to work, however, sometimes all those techniques can at times appear to be ineffective, and additional protection can be of great benefit to the safety of teachers and educators in such moment.
It is hard to imagine that our garments, made from such a lightweight and flexible fabric, could offer such effective protection against human bite injuries, but thousands of satisfied customers around the world cannot be wrong.
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