With the aim to enhance the capacities of penitentiary medical and non-medical staff, two rounds of cascade seminars were held from January to June 2017 (18 weeks), on the basis of training modules prepared by project experts on: 1. Medical Ethics and Human Rights for medical and non-medical staff of prisons in Armenia and 2. Health Prevention and Promotion Activities in Prisons in Armenia.

The national trainers who delivered the cascade sessions were selected from the pool of trainers who have successfully attended the Training of Trainers sessions held in July 2016 and comprised staff members of the Ministry of Justice and the Ombudsman, as well as the civil society and academia.

In total, 738 participants successfully attended the cascade seminars and received a certificate of completion, including 9.8% female participants. 477 members of the prison staff were trained on Medical Ethics and 261 on Health Prevention/Promotion Activities.

Apart from the seminars, coaching sessions and refresher training session for trainers were organised to further advance the trainer’s training, presentation and communication skills.  Monitoring of the quality of the cascade seminars has been conducted by independent experts and the corresponding reports are sent to the Ministry of Justice for further consideration and improvement of the training modules.

As a result of the cascade seminars on Medical ethics and Human Rights modules, the training course was adopted by the Ministry of Justice and will be included in the syllabus of the Law Institute (now Legal Education and Rehabilitation Program Implementation Center SNCO), which ensures sustainability of the developed material for the Council of Europe training course.

The training was organised within the Project on “Strengthening healthcare and human rights protection in prisons in Armenia”, funded under the European Union and the Council of Europe Partnership for Good Governance in the Eastern Partnership Countries