The Athens Lifelong Learning Institute is pleased to announce that the European Erasmus+ project titled AWARE (Cross-sectoral awareness building on mental health needs in the criminal justice system and on release) has been selected by the National Agency of Education for Europe as a good practice in the field of adult education!
This is a very important distinction for the AWARE project, since the National Agency Education for Europe is the organization of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research which is responsible for the European Commission’s initiatives in the field of vocational training and adult education – as well as for European and international educational cooperation.
The AWARE project has managed to sensitize and mobilize many professionals in the field of penitentiary policy and education across Europe, bringing the issue of mental health of (former) prisoners to the forefront. The project highlighted the double stigma that prisoners often experience, namely the stigma of incarceration and the stigma of mental illness, as well as the role that professionals can – and should – play in dealing with this stigma and in providing quality services to people experiencing deprivation of their liberty.
With the AWARE project, the seven project partners made every effort to give the issue of the mental health of (former) prisoners a platform and an awareness-raising space to reduce the recidivism rate of former inmates. As the National Agency Education for Europe points out: “the transnational and cross-sectoral approach of the AWARE project made it possible to look at the topics of mental health and imprisonment from different perspectives and provided new inclusive solutions”.
The AWARE project partners and the Athens Lifelong Learning Institute would like to thank everyone who participated in the different phases of the project and to express their full commitment for further initiatives for the promotion of social inclusion of all European citizens.
