This post is part of our ongoing work helping schools and academies navigate the complex intersection of conflict management, personal safety, and positive handling.
The question we’re addressing:
Is it okay to lift or carry a child who is being restrained from one location to another?
It’s a question that comes up more often than you might think — and the short answer is: only with extensive, documented safeguards in place. Here’s what you need to know.
The Risks
Lifting and carrying a child during a restraint situation carries very significant risks. Unlike a controlled manual-handling task in a warehouse, you’re dealing with an unstable, potentially volatile human load. The dangers include:
- Violence-related injury to staff during the lift or carry
- Musculoskeletal injury to staff — backs, shoulders, and knees are especially vulnerable
- Fall injury to the child — with the potential for head trauma or fractures
⚠️ Legal obligation: Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, Regulation 3, the employer must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to staff and to others involved in the work. Failing to do so is not just poor practice — it is a breach of duties imposed under criminal law.
What Compliance Looks Like
To ensure full compliance with all relevant legal issues, I suggest the following would be required before any lift-or-carry procedure is implemented:
- A manual handling risk assessment of the planned procedure, carried out by a competent person
- A physical intervention / tactical assessment of the planned procedure, carried out by a competent person
- A medical review of the planned procedure, carried out by a competent person
- A medical assessment of the individual child in light of the planned procedure
- Training from a competent source on the planned procedure, delivered to staff who have been assessed as “fit” for the activity of lifting and carrying unstable, potentially volatile loads
Check Their Competencies
If a Behaviour Team is recommending that staff lift and carry a child, you should expect to see all of the documentation above — plus proof of their own competencies.
As a minimum, I would want to see:
- Trainer-level manual handling qualifications
- Trainer-level physical intervention qualifications
Without evidence of those kinds of competencies, it is possible you might be taking unqualified advice.
Moving to Training
Once you’ve reviewed the risk assessments and proof of competencies to your satisfaction, you could conceivably implement the advice. The appropriate staff — those assessed as fit for the activity — would then be trained by someone competent to deliver that specific procedure.
This isn’t about ticking boxes. It’s about making sure that when a child needs to be moved, everyone involved — the child, the staff, and the organisation — is protected by a thorough, defensible process.
The Legal Framework: Manual Handling Regulations
For reference, here are the key extracts from the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended). The hierarchy is clear: avoid, assess, reduce.
📊 Regulation 4(1)(a) — Avoid: So far as is reasonably practicable, avoid the need for employees to undertake any manual handling operations at work which involve a risk of their being injured.
📊 Regulation 4(1)(b) — Assess and Reduce: Where it is not reasonably practicable to avoid the need for manual handling operations which involve a risk of injury, the employer shall:
(i) Make a suitable and sufficient assessment of all such manual handling operations, having regard to the factors specified in Schedule 1 and considering the corresponding questions in column 2 of that Schedule.
(ii) Take appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury to the lowest level reasonably practicable.
(iii) Take appropriate steps to provide employees with general indications and — where reasonably practicable — precise information on the weight of each load and the heaviest side of any load whose centre of gravity is not positioned centrally.
Watch the Full Guidance
💡 Key takeaway: A lift-and-carry procedure during restraint is not a simple handling task — it requires risk assessment, medical review, competent training, and documented qualifications. If your Behaviour Team can’t produce those, the safest course is to refuse until they can.
This guide on conflict management and personal safety is part of our ongoing work with schools and academies. For more resources, visit positivehandling.co.uk.