Background and aim of the meeting

Across the EU, there is no shortage of training programmes designed to support prison staff and their external partners in detecting early signs of radicalisation and dealing with violent extremist and terrorist offenders (VETOs). However, recent overviews of trainings developed and implemented in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 do not exist.

Therefore, the first aim of this meeting will be to gather P/CVE trainings developed and conducted in EU MSs within the last two years, and identify any gaps in what they are currently covering. With trainings having to constantly be adapted to new challenges arising in the field of P/CVE, taking as an example an increased digitalisation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, an update of what is currently available and what is needed is imperative.

Secondly, P/CVE trainings can entail anything from learning about different extremist phenomena and signs of radicalisation, to obtaining the necessary competences and skill sets to engage with vulnerable or already radicalised inmates, to setting up organisational structures for monitoring cases and engaging with partners outside of prison. Often, trainings comprise a hybrid of these different elements.

In seeking to learn from the first-hand experiences of prison staff and their partners who have been on the receiving end of P/CVE trainings, the second aim of this meeting is to identify the most crucial elements, competences and skills required for prison staff and their partners to be able to address radicalisation and extremism within the prison context.

What kind of training do practitioners actually require to confidently work with the target group of radicalised and terrorist inmates? What are their needs and questions? How multi-agency collaboration in prison related to P-CVE could be improved through trainings covering this specific aspect?

The conclusions of the meeting will be shared with the policymakers of the Member States and might feed into the agenda of RAN Practitioners and RAN Policy Support (Member State policymakers and researchers) and the European Commission.

Practitioners we are looking for:

The target audience of this meeting will reflect those developing and delivering as well as those receiving P/CVE trainings in the prison context:

• Developers and implementers of P/CVE training courses for prisons at the communal and national level.
• Prison staff: correctional and probation officers, prison management, prison psychologists, representatives of unions of prison staff.
• Prison ‘partners’: religious chaplains and counsellors, social and family workers, educators, intervention and deradicalisation workers.

In order to find the best suited participants, we would like to ask you if you could answer the following questions: 

Developers and implementers of P/CVE trainings programmes:

• Have you been working on the creation or update of a P/CVE training programme for prisons and/or delivered a training during the last 24 months?
• If so, could you briefly describe the programme?
• Did you experience any challenges related to developing and/or delivering the training?

Prison staff and partners:

• Have you participated in a P/CVE training during the last 24 months?
• If so, do you feel that you benefited from the training or not?
• If not, what kind of training would you have liked to receive?

Deadline

If you are interested in participating in this meeting, please elaborate on these questions until 15 October the latest and send them to Alexandra Korn and Steven Lenos.

We will invite participants based on this information. Please keep in mind that we only have a limited amount of places available for this meeting to foster exchanges, so participation is not guaranteed.   

The meeting will be held digitally in English (without interpretation).

If you have any further questions, contact Alexandra Korn and Steven Lenos.