Digital Handbook

Making It Happen

Optional ideas informed by the EuroPris Staff Wellbeing Expert Group to help you explore the topic further and adapt approaches to your own prison service.

• Model empathy and openness at leadership level to strengthen psychological safety, including visible conversations about wellbeing (e.g., senior staff delivering monthly wellbeing briefings).

• Introduce mental health awareness early in employment to reduce stigma, including wellbeing content within onboarding (e.g., induction modules on maintaining mental health).

• Align workplace policies with trauma informed principles to foster safety and understanding, including personalised support approaches (e.g., flexible rostering after serious incidents or traumatic events).

• Support selfcare through reasonable adjustments to reduce pressure, including joint discussions with staff about helpful changes (e.g., short term task modifications, space for recovery etc).

• Ensure stigma free access to support to promote early engagement, including visible promotion of (confidential) counselling, wellbeing resources and peer support (e.g., posters in staff areas and digital signposting).

• Deliver training on stress, trauma and communication to improve competence, including recurrent learning opportunities (e.g., quarterly resilience or trauma informed care workshops).

• Educate staff about trauma impacts and triggers to prevent re-traumatisation, including guidance on appropriate communication (e.g., training on behaviour and sensitive language use).

• Encourage resilience building activities to enhance coping over time, including mindfulness, selfcare and emotional regulation sessions (e.g., resilience skills workshops).

• Schedule annual mental health education accessible to all shifts to maintain parity, and reduce blind spots across teams including multiday wellbeing events (e.g., Hungary’s annual 5-day ‘Education Week’ with psychology/health units delivering talks on maintaining mental health).

• Train staff in crisis recognition and suicide prevention to enable safe intervention, including guidance for early detection and referral (e.g., Lithuania’s suicide prevention modules for recognising warning signs, referral procedures, and prevention measures).

• Provide structured annual recovery programmes to mitigate cumulative strain, and long-term health issues including therapeutic interventions (e.g., Slovakia’s 2-week recreational physiotherapy and hydrotherapy programme in therapeutic centres).

• Create structured feedback loops to strengthen trust and continuous improvement, including surveys and staff forums (e.g., regular wellbeing check-ins).