Following a very successful awareness raising training for technical and operational staff from all closed institutions in Kosovo* that took place in November, an additional similar training was organised for all prison directors and the heads of the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry and the Special Institute for Persons with Mental and Learning Difficulties, on 10-11 December.

The cornerstone of both trainings were the recently developed protocols on documenting and reporting ill-treatment and the relevant tools, namely the incident report and the checklist of injuries, developed with the assistance of the Council of Europe in June 2024.

Similarly to the operational and technical staff, the prison directors and the heads of the closed institutions raised their awareness of the Protocol and the accompanying tools, whilst combining theory with the work on practical case scenarios and sessions on how to complete the check lists and incident reports for a better understanding.

The training, which was also attended by officials of the Prison Health Department (PHD) of the Ministry of Health, including the head of the PHD, contributed towards further improvement of inter-institutional cooperation and communication between the project partners and beneficiaries on a managerial level.

The event was further attended by the Deputy Ombudsperson of Kosovo, Director General and Deputy Director General of the Kosovo Correctional Service, Chief Prison Inspector of the Ministry of Justice, as well as the Head of the Correctional Unit of the EU Rule of Law Mission to Kosovo (EULEX).

The training participants received printed copies of the Protocol for distributing among their colleagues.

The training was organized under the auspices of the Council of Europe project “Improvement of the treatment of persons deprived of liberty”.

* All references to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions, or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United National Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.