The 4th Project Coordination Committee meeting was held in Kyiv on 31 January 2017 to report on progress made over the last 6 months and to share the plans for the next half a year. Representatives of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, the General Prosecutor’s Office, the Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Penitentiary Matters, the Ukrainian National Bar Association, the Bila Tserkva In-Service Training Centre, and human rights protection organisations provided their feedback on the project implementation and gave useful comments on the planned activities.
One of the highlights of the past period was the progress in development of the methodologies for social and life skills courses. When implemented in pilot prisons , the group methodology have notable positive effects on prisoners’ relations with their family or simple communication skills. It is also worth mentioning that in December the project started development of the prison management manual. The manual is planned to be produced as a publication in two different formats over the next 6 months in a consultative process with the Ukrainian experts, the academia and prison management practitioners.
Finally, the project engages the prison staff from the six pilot prisons to draft the guidelines on the prevention of suicide and self-harm and on the basic dynamic security policy.. These policies, once being tested in the pilots, are expected to be approved and adopted on the national level.
The activity was organized within the framework of the EU/CoE PCF Project “Further Support to Penitentiary Reform in Ukraine”.