The Council of Europe is assisting the Albanian prison service in the process of introducing for the first time the trauma-informed therapy for women offenders. It promotes emotional recovery by being aware of patient’s triggers as well as recognises the signs of trauma and builds on a strength-based approach to resist re-traumatisation.

In this view, an on-site visit of Council of Europe experts was conducted to the newly built “Pojska” prison near Pogradec, aiming to assess the situation and modalities of piloting the treatment programme with the prison authorities. During this visit an open discussion was held with women offenders to exchange and understand their willingness of participating in the programme.

The meeting was followed by a capacity building session in Tirana with Pojska prison psycho-social staff, psychologists from the Prison Hospital and representatives of the Directorate General of Prisons. The Council of Europe experts covered key principles of post-traumatic emotional recovery and the management of trauma triggers in a prison environment. A specific focus was placed on group therapy demonstration and roll playing of all sessions of the treatment programme.

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