Our Team

Bruce Chapman is the President and Founder of Handle With Care. Bruce is an expert in the fields of behavior management, unarmed use-of-force and the use of both physical and therapeutic mechanical restraints. Throughout his 34 year career, he has developed five separate proprietary training programs to help specialized agencies that care for children as young as three years old to geriatric facilities caring for the elderly to maximum security forensic and correctional facilities dealing with the highest risk levels. Bruce created Handle With Care® technology from 1973 through 1984 on the locked psychiatric unit of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, where he was regarded as the hospital’s authority on the prevention and management of aggression and suicide. Bruce created PLUS™ in 1995, a standalone defensive tactics training program developed in response to the unique use-of-force challenges of the law enforcement and correctional environments. Bruce created SoftCircle products in 1999 earning him 11 U.S. Patents for his “modular” therapeutic restraint system and other products. Bruce Chapman-created training programs and products are currently taught and used in over 1000 agencies in 50 States its territories, Canada and Europe. He has personally produced nearly 100 Master Instructors and many thousands of HWC Certified Instructors and HWC users working across the broad spectrum of human services. Bruce has been described as a true innovator in the field of physical and mechanical restraint. Handle With Care’s proprietary PRT® holding method was given the distinction of being the first and only physical technique in the history of the U.S. Patent Office for its integrated safeguards to prevent positional asphyxiation during a prone hold (“Apparatus and Method for Safely Maintaining a Restraining Hold on a Person”). He has a reputation for conceiving ‘out of the box’ solutions and for presenting agencies with concise expert analysis and use-of-force testimony. He can assist any agency in crafting and shaping behavior management and restraint policies that conform with and exceed the minefield of applicable state and federal laws, regulations and policies including JACHO, COA, CMS, CWLA, OJJDP, ACA and Pediatric Standards.