The aim of this study was to examine how treatment staff considered the issue of seclusions of young people in institutional care. We also wanted to know how the treatment staff looked at their role and how they thought that the youth perceived seclusion/isolation. We were also interested in how the staff group cooperated in the seclusions and how they thought that a possible ban would affect their future work. We interviewed eight treatment assistants in two different institutional care homes. We then analysed the interviews by our four different themes. Our conclusion was that our informants believe that separation is to be considered a last measure, when all other means are exhausted. All informants also felt that it was a major abuse, and they believed that the young people experienced it as very offensive. We also interpreted the results as indicating that the special overall institutional care environment, with its total isolation from the outside world, made intractable conflicts emerge. However, all the informants believed that it was necessary to keep the power to seclude/isolate in order to ensure safety on the ward for both young people and staf
