An Aberdeen child care worker has received a warning after inappropriately restraining a young person on a bed.
David Cooper, of Peterculter, worked as a support worker in 2012 at Linn Moor School at the time of the incident.
A Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) tribunal heard that Mr Cooper carried out “inappropriate physical intervention” on September 12 last year by restraining the boy “on a bed by holding onto him by his forearms”.
However, the SSSC also heard that there was no known harm caused to the service user, who was calm and giggling during the hold.
Mr Cooper failed to record the restraint on incident report forms, as required by his employer.
The SSSC report published following the tribunal added: “Abusive behaviour by a social service worker is a breach of trust and confidence for social service users. It is a misuse of power and position placed on social service workers, whilst also placing service users at risk of harm.
“The behaviour was a failure to follow appropriate restraint techniques designed to keep service users safe based on the principle of reasonable and minimal methods of physical intervention and applying physical intervention only as a last resort.”
The tribunal concluded that Mr Cooper will be punished with a warning on his membership of the Register for Residential Child Care Workers, which will expire after six months.