Council Of Europe Project "Protecting the Rights of Ukrainian Children during and in post-war context” in cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, and Prosecutor’s training center of Ukraine have conducted the 6th training "Models of effective interagency cooperation in criminal proceedings involving children". The training was held during 23-26 April 2024 in Kyiv.
The training brought together 27 representatives of the Prosecutor’s office, investigators, juvenile prevention, probation authorities, lawyers of the free legal aid system, penitentiary institutions and places of pre-trial detention, children’s services, guardianship and guardianship bodies, psycho-social support services of children, working in Zhytomyr, and in Zhytomyrska oblast.
In total, during October 2023-April 2024, the Project conducted a series of 6 similar trainings for multidisciplinary teams from Kyiv , Cherkasy , Kropyvnytskyi , Lviv , Chernivtsi , and Zhytomyr. The objective of the trainings is to develop child-friendly approaches and effective Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) of interagency collaborative response model interaction. During the four training days, participants developed comprehensive interagency standard operating procedure’s involving all relevant actors based on the example of a real case during the pre-trial investigation, at the trial stage, and at the post-trial stage.
As a result of the series of trainings, 156 representatives (110 women, 46 men) gained new knowledge and skills. The trainings received very positive feedback from the participants.
This supports the pilot project on the practical implementation of international standards of child-friendly justice, established through a Joint order of The Office of the Prosecutor General, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.
The Training Curriculum consists of three modules:
- Modul 1. Foundation module in child-friendly justice, including relevant Council of Europe standards.
- Modul 2. Interagency collaborative response as a core element of child-friendly justice.
- Modul 3. Introduction of the child-friendly approach and application of child-friendly procedures and practices based on specific scenarios.
The Project in cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor General will further institutionalise a Training Curriculum on Interagency collaboration response model "Directives in criminal proceedings involving children” to ensure a long-term impact during the war and post-war period. This also implied adopting changes in attitudes and working methods, implementing legal, policy and institutional reform that all require long periods of time to be sustainable.
The Training Curriculum was developed by a team of Council of Europe experts - Irina Urumova, Liudmyla Hrytsenko and Pavlo Parkhomenko.
The Council of Europe Project ‘Protecting the Rights of Ukrainian Children during and in post-war context’ is implemented by the Council of Europe in the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine ‘Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction’ for 2023-2026.
