On December 13, 2023, a three-day training for trainers on implementing a rehabilitation programme for prisoners who use psychoactive substances ended in Lviv, Ukraine.

The goal of the rehabilitation programme is to support prisoners in developing skills that will allow them to overcome a desire to use psychoactive substances, both during their stay in prison and after release. The program is designed for adult man and women prisoners in correctional institutions and remand centres of the State Department for Execution of the Criminal Sanctions of Ukraine.

During the ToT, 20 penitentiary psychologists learned to train their peers on delivery of the rehabilitation programme, which can be implemented both individually (in particular in the form of online classes) and in groups. The psychologists independently completed the tasks of the programme, mastered new material through the execution of scenarios and role-play exercises, tried themselves as trainers and exchanged experience in responding to problematic issues that arise during daily work with convicts.

The development of the Substance use rehabilitation programme for prisoners  and a methodological guide to it, as well as the training of trainers was supported by the Joint Project "The European Union and the Council of Europe work together to support prison reform in Ukraine Plus (SPERU+)".