Employees of the Prison Medicine Centre subunits, prison psychologists, and officers from the Security Unit of the penitentiary institutions enhanced their knowledge on the suicide and self-harm prevention in line with the Council of Europe standards, including initial screening and in-depth assessment, as well as the role of professionals involved in the assessment. The programme included practical exercises, interactive interviews and the presentation of the official roadmap with specific timeline for the piloting and sequence of steps.
The training will be followed by a piloting of the said tools in three penitentiary institutions in September 2021 with the aim to test and validate the Toolkit for Screening and Risk and Need Assessment of Suicide and Self-harm Behaviour in Penitentiary System in Armenia.
The training for 17 participants from the Prison Medicine Centre subunits, prison psychologists and officers from the Security Unit of the penitentiary institutions took place in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia from 23 to 26 August 2021, and it was organised within the framework of the project “Enhancing health care and human rights protection in prisons in Armenia” implemented by the Council of Europe and financed by the Action Plan for Armenia 2019 -2022.