AN INNOVATIVE AND COST-EFFECTIVE
PEER MENTORING PROGRAMME FOR PRISON STAFF
We aim to provide prison staff with a state-of-the-art peer
mentoring programme to tackle:
Mental Health Issues, Job Burnout and Job-Related Stress
PROJECT RESULTS
The project presents an innovative and cost-effective way to prison staff training, driven by a training methodology through the delivery of a blended format training, with ramifications and benefits to the Criminal Justice System as a whole, given the cornerstone importance of prison personnel for inmates’ rehabilitation and successful daily management of prisons.
People working in prisons usually experience a very stressful and hazardous workplace. Being at the heart and soul of these facilities, prison staff is faced with challenges that often place a burden on them. The singular work environment of correctional institutions, such as the responsibility to supervise and secure a population potentially uncooperative, manipulative, and violent, exacerbates the probability of job burnout, which remains higher in prison staff than in the general population.
Prison staff is exposed to detrimental occupational stressors and work environment stressors that have consequences at both the individual level – mental and physical health problems, including depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, burnout, substance abuse, early retirement, and coronary artery diseases – and organisation level – increased job turnover, absenteeism, job dissatisfaction, decreased job performance and organisational commitment.
LATEST NEWS
The importance and growing responsibility of prison staff to the wellbeing and rehabilitation of inmates is well documented. Moreover, effective prison systems should provide health care standards equivalent to those available in the community, as outlined in the various international instruments (e.g., “Nelson Mandela Rules”) and reinforced by the WHO/Europe Health in Prisons Programme. Successful prison services rely on managing these occupational stressors and negative outcomes through modern and cost-effective employment practices. This can only be achieved when prison management and staff fully comprehend and develop a whole-prison approach that addresses holistically the health and well-being of inmates, staff, and the wider community.
To foster and provide successful prison services, managing these occupational stressors and negative outcomes becomes of utmost importance. In this sense, the motivation behind the M4Pris – Peer mentoring programme for prison staff Project is to tackle this usually looked over the issue, through the provision of a peer mentoring programme for prisons staff – a modern and cost-effective practice.
On the one hand, the project provides the opportunity to improve and promote health in targeted prisons using a whole-systems approach, decreasing levels of job-related stress and burnout among prison staff, and increasing awareness of prison administrations and staff about environmental, organisational, and personal factors that support or hinder health and well-being of prisoners, staff, and the wider community. On the other hand, despite the growing interest and promising results, peer tutoring intervention strategies for prison staff have received little empirical attention, enabling European Institutions to be at the forefront in developing scientific and practical informed solutions.