Marathon Engineering Corporation has installed Gold Medal Safety Padding in numerous time-out rooms and seclusion rooms within K-12 schools and specialty education facilities worldwide. We have the experience and quality products to keep your students safe!
We are the leader in padded safety rooms for several reasons. Our padding really does help create a quiet and peaceful surrounding. Our rooms are also seamless and extremely durable, making it harder for any user of the room to damage the room. Our rooms are also easy for your own team to make repairs if anything does happen to the padding.
Does my school need a time-out room/seclusion room?
Over the last few decades, schools have increasingly seen an increase in children with challenging behavior. Between the rise in autism, changing laws (Like No Child Left Behind legislation in the USA), and other factors, there is a higher burden on schools than ever before to be able to work with a full spectrum of children including everything from geniuses to special needs children.
Time-out rooms are still needed
Time-Out Rooms/Seclusion Rooms are ultimately about safety. While the science of psychology and the quality of medications have also advanced a lot in the last several decades, there are still times when a student needs to be removed from other students and staff for the safety of all (which should be done within the guidelines set forward by your state and school district).
We actually really like the term de-escalation rooms, because that gives us a better picture of what we are trying to achieve with these rooms. These rooms are not meant for punishment, convenience, or anything other than short-term use to de-escalate a potentially dangerous situation. As de-escalation rooms, they are also designed to be calming. Children will occasionally request the use of our rooms to be able to calm themselves down and feel centered again.
Aren’t time-out rooms bad for kids?
The reason time-out rooms get a bad reputation is that they sometimes get misused to the detriment of a child. It is the improper use of the room by school staff that is the problem in these situations. Does that mean we stop using seclusion rooms? Well, sometimes children have bad experiences in the bathrooms or locker rooms of our schools, does that mean we stop using bathrooms? No, we correct how these rooms are used.
We cannot say this enough…time-out rooms, as well as all challenging behavior interventions, should be done strictly within the guidelines set by your state and school district. These guidelines should be created by professionals who know how to properly use de-escalation techniques, including the use of de-escalation rooms. Well-made guidelines will ensure the seclusion room is used only when it is appropriate.
De-escalation rooms are often meant to be the last piece in your de-escalation arsenal. A trained professional should try actively to de-escalate a child first. If all other avenues fail and things continue to get worse, then a seclusion room may be an appropriate choice. If it is a choice between a de-escalation room and having the police drag a child away, most people would agree the time-out room is a better final step. We use the room to help a child become calm again, taking the potential for harm away.
