Joaquín and Minoo
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Joaquín went to a new school in year 4 after he was ‘assaulted by a staff member at his prior school’.
The school principal agreed under sufferance to take him into the mainstream program, and Joaquín had a full-time education assistant.
‘And he was actually doing really well, making new friends,’ his mother Minoo told the Royal Commission. ‘The class was a third full of autistic kids and seemed to be really inclusive with the different kids and their needs.’
But a few weeks in, Joaquín had a meltdown and the school isolated him in an ‘alternative learning space’.
‘Which was basically a corner in the library … There was no integration with anyone else. He never played with kids ever again. He felt shamed.’
Joaquín started having frequent meltdowns and panic attacks because his ‘anxiety had risen’.
‘Being trapped makes me so angry,’ Joaquín told his mum. ‘I don't deserve to be treated like that. I don't want to be in a different class to the other kids.’
His teaching assistants didn’t help him when he was ‘upset or dysregulated’. They just ‘dragged’ him into ‘the calm room’.
‘That calm down room was never used for calming down, it was used for restraints,’ Minoo said. ‘He had four staff pinning him face down on the ground for more than three or four minutes. That only made him worse, and he'd fight back …’
When Minoo went to pick him up, ‘he'd be in tears, sobbing’.
But staff saw his outbursts as ‘intentional’.
‘And on one of these occasions, he actually wet himself, and the principal dared say to me that he urinated on the carpet intentionally and now he's going to be suspended. This was the pattern … being punished for his autism and his autistic behaviours.’
Joaquín was suspended six or so times in a year.
‘As a result of the people who were mismanaging him ... He doesn't act like that at home. He is like that if you don't listen to him or if you take away his control and his autonomy like anybody would be.’
Each time, the principal would say, ‘You need to make amends … You need to fix your behaviour.’ He was ‘treated like a criminal … and put on a behaviour plan’.
‘He's autistic. His greatest weakness is his self-regulation, and if he doesn't have adults to help him regulate, he's not going to learn that skill,’ Minoo said. ‘All he's learning is you get punished for losing control. Punished and tortured.’
Minoo sees it as ‘ableist and discriminatory’.
‘None of the non-autistic children at this school were treated in this way. It's like their given right to abuse because the child is disabled.’
Joaquín started ‘running away trying to escape school’. Eventually, the school expelled him.
‘It was like good riddance … He is such a beautiful, intelligent, caring, and generous child, but not once did I ever hear anything nice about my child being said at the school, because nobody ever got to know him. They treated him like a dancing little monkey puppet.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.