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Police reviewing incident involving therapist accused of abusing child with autism

SINGAPORE — The police are reviewing an incident involving a therapist who allegedly abused a child with autism during a therapy session in 2019. This comes after the child’s mother posted videos of the incident on social media on June 30 — more than a year after it occurred — while the autism centre involved said the therapist in the videos has since been sacked.

Screengrab from a video posted by Facebook user Safirah Oshin of the incident where a therapist allegedly abused her son, who has autism, during a therapy session in 2019.

Screengrab from a video posted by Facebook user Safirah Oshin of the incident where a therapist allegedly abused her son, who has autism, during a therapy session in 2019.

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  • Videos of the 2019 incident were posted online by the child’s mother on June 30, 2020, and she called for “justice” for her son
  • In a statement, police said a report was made in March 2019 and the family was told in August 2019 that therapist had been issued a written advisory
  • Police said they are now reviewing the case and the autism centre involved has come out to say it dismissed the therapist in March 2019

 

SINGAPORE — The police are reviewing an incident involving a therapist who allegedly abused a child with autism during a therapy session in 2019. This comes after the child’s mother posted videos of the incident on social media on June 30 — more than a year after it occurred — while the autism centre involved said the therapist in the videos has since been sacked.

The police said in a statement on Friday (July 3) that they are aware of a post regarding the incident — which took place on March 29 last year — that has surfaced online.

The post was made by Facebook user Safirah Oshin on Tuesday and included two videos of the incident. In her post, she alleged that her son — whom she said has autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — had been abused by his applied behavioural analysis therapist in their home.

In the statement on Friday, the police said they received a report lodged by the child’s father on March 29, 2019. The father said his six-year-old son had been physically abused by a 28-year-old female therapist earlier that day during a home therapy session.

The police said a medical examination of the boy was carried out on the same day and no physical injuries were found. After investigations into the incident in consultation with the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), the police issued a written advisory to the therapist, and the outcome was communicated to the boy’s family in August 2019.

“This outcome took into consideration the context of the therapist’s actions, and the interactions and dynamics between the boy and the therapist during the entire 90-minute session, which the nine-minute extract of the CCTV footage that had been shared online did not fully reflect,” the police statement said.

The police added that they received further representations from the family in January this year. They then conducted more interviews and sought further guidance from the AGC while staying in contact with the family, and are still in the midst of reviewing the case.

THERAPIST WAS FIRED: AUTISM CENTRE

In her post, which has since gone viral, Ms Safirah called for “justice” for her son and claimed that the therapist involved had been given a “verbal warning with no further action” taken.

On Wednesday, autism centre AutismSTEP took to Facebook to say that the therapist in the videos had already been dismissed.

According to the centre, its clinical director and the therapist involved visited the child’s family on the night of the incident to apologise and offer support.

“The therapist involved was immediately suspended. We commenced an internal investigation the next day and following the findings, we dismissed the therapist a day later,” AutismSTEP said.

“We understand the family’s desire to seek justice in this incident and have cooperated fully with police investigations. We are also ready to cooperate with other relevant bodies for further investigations and believe that the authorities will deal with the matter appropriately,” the centre added.

On Friday, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) said in a Facebook post that it had first been alerted to the incident by a community partner in April last year, when police investigations were already underway.

After looking into the matter, the ministry found that the therapist’s employment had been terminated, and the autism centre also informed it of precautionary measures it had put into place.

MSF said it reached out to the family on the same night that it was told of the incident in order to “establish the facts and offer support”, and that it had not received any further feedback on the incident until three days ago when the videos were circulated online.

“We have also checked on the 31 early intervention (EI) centres that MSF provides funding to and has direct oversight of, and confirmed that the therapist is not currently under their employment,” the ministry said.

“Over the years, we have tightened requirements on child-safe practices and staff conduct for EI centres registered with MSF as Baby Bonus Approved Institutions. We will look into further tightening the requirements and ensure compliance related to child safety and staff code of conduct in these centres,” MSF added.

Related topics

police Autism child abuse MSF

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