The European Union and the Council of Europe are helping to improve treatment of prisoners with mental health disorders and forensic patients by increasing prison staff’s professional knowledge of management of this vulnerable category of inmates.

A two-day training was held in Lezha on 22-23 November 2023, bringing together 25 professionals representing both prison police and psycho-social staff from the Albanian penitentiary service. The training focused on the peculiarities of managing prisoners with mental health disorders and forensic patients, covering important topics such as identification, signs of mental health disorders, reaction in the case of self-harm, types and symptoms of mental disorders etc. Council of Europe standards and good practices on responding to incidents involving prisoners with mental health disorders were explained to the staff.  

The training was conducted in the framework of the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye – Phase III”, and in particular Action on “Enhancing the protection of Human Rights of prisoners in Albania”.