The Council of Europe is helping the Albanian prison service to introduce trauma-informed therapy for women offenders.

Namely, after the transfer of all women offenders from Ali Demi prison to the newly built Pojska prison near Pogradec, an on-site visit was conducted on 17 February 2025 to visit the premises of the new facility, understand the weekly regime, as well as discuss with the prison director the modalities of piloting the treatment programme. In this framework a discussion was held also with women offenders to understand their willingness of participating in the programme.

To this end, a one-day training followed on 18 February 2025 in Tirana, bringing together Pojska prison psycho-social staff, psychologists from the Prison Hospital and representatives of the Directorate General of Prisons who in cooperation with Pojska prison staff will pilot the programme in the following months. The training 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 training was conducted in the framework of the joint European Union and 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”.