Funder: European Commission

Partners: European Organisation of Prison and Correctional Services, Scoala Nationala de Pregantire a Penitenciare Tirgu Ocna (Romania) Department of Justice and Equality (Ireland), General Directorate Execution of Sentences (Bulgaria) and the Ecole National d’Administration Penitentiare (France).

Project period: 30 months, start in spring 2021

Budget: € 707,059.21

Programme Manager NHC: Koen Goei

Innovating together: Connecting European Penitentiary Training Academies

In the past years, the EPTA network has proven its great potential and became an even more professional and structured network, translating into a substantial increase in membership and the launch of a new website. This new project builds further on these achievements to provide for a stronger and even more sustainable network and more in-depth information sharing.

The ETPA network will stimulate participation and exchange in the network and will allow existing and future European members to profit from the results. As a direct target group, the National Training Academies will be able to use innovative tools developed by the ETPA network, and keep track of new developments in the field of training correctional staff. By stimulating mutual learning they will directly benefit from the project and save resources in the process of developing high quality trainings for their correctional staff.

The project will undertake the following activities: further development of the current ETPA website, the online platform and Knowledge Management System, three annual network meetings, a crisis management workshop related to innovative training methods, three cross border training staff exchanges and a meeting between EPTA and other staff training institutions such as the Confederation of European Probation.

Through these activities, the project aims to 1) improve communication between EPTA members, 2) stimulate professional exchange and cooperation between training academies on a European level, and 3) address three specific needs identified with the Training Academies through tailor-made work sessions. These outcomes will provide a stronger and even more sustainable network with increased capacity to tackle training needs and improve cross-border cooperation.