The Council of Europe and the European Union Delegation have launched a series of refresher training sessions on human rights of those with mental disorders and medical ethics, especially designed for the staff of psychiatric institutions.

The aim of the training sessions is to consolidate the participants’ knowledge and further advance their understanding on the issues of ethical standards, human rights approaches to mental health care, and rights of persons with mental disabilities, so that they can apply them in their daily work with more confidence. 

The first session was launched on 20 November. Following sessions will be organised on each weekend, simultaneously in couple of venues throughout the country, thus in Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Batumi, until the end of the year. The training sessions will restart in 2017. 

The sessions are conducted by the Georgian trainers - staff members of psychiatric institutions, Public Defender’s Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Corrections and the Penitentiary and Probation Training Centre- who were specially prepared for the task in June - July 2015. The training module covering theoretical and practical sessions was also specially designed by the Council of Europe international experts

The training sessions are part of the Council of Europe’s activities in support of improving the provision of mental health in closed institutions of Georgia. They are organised within the framework of the CoE/EU Eastern Partnership Programmatic Cooperation Framework Project “Human Rights and Healthcare in prisons and Other Closed Institutions in Georgia II”.