Digital Tool on Staff Wellbeing:

A European Overview

Output of the EuroPris Staff Wellbeing Expert Group

Field Insights

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The Field Insights are a collection of best practices and good examples of the experts of the group and their national approaches. They are real-life examples from European prison systems that show how wellbeing strategies, leadership practices, and staff support measures are being put into action.

Each insight highlights concrete initiatives, what was done, why it mattered, and what impact it had, offering practical inspiration for others looking to implement meaningful change.

They bring the handbook’s key principles to life through lived experience.

CATALONIA: RECVI (Extreme Risk of Institutional Violent Behaviour) Programme – Preventing Violence and Supporting Staff Wellbeing

Learn how the RECVI Programme, implemented across Catalonia’s prison system, has significantly reduced violent incidents and enhanced safety and wellbeing for correctional staff.

CATALONIA: Internal Support Units (USI)

Explore how Catalonia’s Internal Support Units (USI) have been deployed to improve incident response, reduce staff stress, and support correctional staff facing high-risk inmate situations.

ITALY: Breaking the Silence – A New Model for Psychological Support in Italian Prisons

Discover how Italy has implemented an innovative, evidence-based psychological support programme for penitentiary police officers, aimed at preventing stress, burnout, and psychological distress.

SCOTLAND: Lifelines Prison Service – Promoting Staff Wellbeing in Scotland’s Prisons

Learn how the Scottish Prison Service launched Lifelines Prison Service, a trauma-informed wellbeing resource designed to support staff facing high levels of stress. Developed in collaboration with emergency services, the initiative promotes resilience, mental health awareness, and self-care.

CROATIA: Psychological Support for Prison and Probation Staff

Explore how the Croatian Prison Administration has established a dedicated Department for Psychological Support, offering crisis intervention and proactive care to prison and probation staff exposed to traumatic events.

LITHUANIA: Recognition and Reward Framework

A comprehensive system of awards, medals, and symbolic recognition strengthens motivation, honours years of service, and fosters pride and cohesion among correctional staff.

CROATIA: Supervision as Professional Support

Learn how the Croatian Ministry of Justice introduced structured professional supportive supervision to enhance staff wellbeing across its prison and probation services. In response to high emotional demands and organisational pressures, the initiative focused on building internal supervision capacity as a sustainable support mechanism.

SCOTLAND: Senior Leader Wellbeing Support

Learn how the Scottish Prison Service is supporting senior leader wellbeing. This article outlines the pressures facing prison leaders and introduces a new hybrid wellbeing model that combines resilience-focused group sessions with personalised, confidential support to reduce burnout and strengthen trauma-informed leadership.

FINLAND: Leading with care, supporting with purpose

An overview of how the Finnish Prison and Probation Service strengthened leadership to support a healthy, resilient work culture. It highlights a structured, nationwide approach to developing managers as role models, improving staff wellbeing, and building a more consistent, values-led organisational culture through collaboration and shared learning.

LITHUANIA: Stress Management Training

A summary of how the Lithuanian Prison Service supports staff wellbeing in high-stress prison environments. It highlights stress management training, psychological counselling, and critical incident debriefing as key measures to reduce burnout, strengthen coping skills, improve performance, and promote a healthier, more supportive organisational culture.

SLOVAKIA: Access to Health Services

A focus on how prison services promote staff health and wellbeing through everyday support. It highlights access to healthy meals, sports and fitness facilities, regular physical assessments, on-site medical care, preventive health checks, and counselling services that together support the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of prison staff.

ENGLAND AND WALES: Wellbeing Conversations

Insight into how wellbeing conversations are embedded across prisons in England and Wales. It highlights the role of line managers in holding regular, compassionate, employee-led conversations that support wellbeing, encourage open communication, and signpost staff to appropriate support, while clearly distinguishing these discussions from performance management or therapeutic interventions.

IRELAND: Staff Support Officers

A look at how the Irish Prison Service has strengthened peer support through its Staff Support Officers programme. It outlines the role of specialist academic training, the focus on screening, support, and signposting, and the measures in place to safeguard the wellbeing and resilience of officers providing support in trauma-exposed prison environments.

SCOTLAND: Harm Reduction

An account of how the Scottish Prison Service addressed the risks associated with use of force in custodial settings. It highlights a collaboratively designed, evidence-based training programme that combined updated intervention techniques, continuous coaching, and reflective practice to reduce harm and improve safety and wellbeing across prisons.

HUNGARY: Benefits for Staff

A snapshot of how the Hungarian Prison Service supports staff through a wide range of benefits. It highlights financial assistance, housing and health support, paid medical leave, reward and recognition schemes, performance bonuses, and family-friendly measures that contribute to staff security, wellbeing, and long-term retention.

SCOTLAND: Employee Wellbeing Policy

A clear example of how the Scottish Prison Service strengthened staff support through a unified Employee Wellbeing Policy. It brings together emotional, financial, social, and health-related wellbeing within a single, practical framework, improving access to support, increasing awareness, and embedding wellbeing into everyday organisational culture.

SLOVAKIA: Training Institute

A detailed picture of how Slovakia’s Prison and Judicial Guard Corps invests in workforce capability through a structured training institute. It highlights a comprehensive, regulation-based learning system that builds professional skills, ethical standards, and confidence, supporting staff retention, motivation, and safer, more effective custodial services.

HUNGARY: Education, Training and Rehabilitation Centre

A closer look at how the Hungarian Prison Service develops and sustains its workforce through its Education, Training and Rehabilitation Centre. It highlights structured, role-specific training that combines professional skills, physical conditioning, and wellbeing support to build capability, support career pathways, and maintain consistent, high standards across the prison system.

IRELAND: Staff Recognition

A reflection on how the Irish Prison Service recognises and values its workforce. It highlights long service awards, merit-based honours for bravery and exceptional service, and excellence and innovation awards that celebrate individual and team contributions, reinforcing pride, motivation, and commitment across the Service.