The Council of Europe (CoE) and European Union Delegation continue to support the further enhancement of skills of Georgian prison psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers in administering Suicide Prevention Programme in prisons. As a part of this support, on-site supervision of multidisciplinary teams of suicide prevention has been launched in November and will continue in December 2016 as well as in 2017. It is expected that the local experts will supervise the work of the multidisciplinary suicide prevention teams in the prior selected prisons.

The supervision is planned to assess the current situation in prisons, analyse how the trained prison staff implements the Suicide Prevention Programme , support them and develop recommendations for further improvement.  

The introduction and implementation of the suicide prevention programme is supported by the CoE since its launch in 2013. International experts were involved in the development of the programme, different corresponding documents were reviewed in light of the relevant CoE recommendations, other international standards and best practices and several meetings with all stakeholders sharing best practices and experience were held.  

Around 900 medical and non-medical staff members of prisons, as well as prison directors, deputy directors and chief doctors were trained so far using a programme and methodology specially designed for teaching suicide prevention work. The prison staff who underwent the training learnt more about suicide prevention activities and suicide management techniques and equipped with the necessary skills to prevent suicide attempts in prisons to a possible extent and thus to contribute to the decrease in number of suicide cases.

The supervision is a part of the Council of Europe and European Union Delegation support to improve the provision of mental health in Georgian prisons and other closed institutions. This activity is organised within the framework of the CoE/EU Eastern Partnership Programmatic Cooperation Framework Project “Human Rights and Healthcare in prisons and Other Closed Institutions in Georgia II”.

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