Prison officers trained to provide psychosocial support to prisoners

Prison officers have been given training on providing psychosocial support to prisoners.

The support will involve providing emotional, social, and psychological assistance to help the prisoners improve their mental well-being, resilience, and ability to cope, especially in challenging situations.

It is part of the rollout of the implementation of the United Nations Organization on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) sponsored project dubbed “Enhancing Access to Psychosocial Support and Arts Therapy in Prisons in Ghana”.

The responsibility of the Prisons Service goes beyond ensuring safe custody to providing psychosocial support for inmates which will help transform the prisoners after exiting the prison and enable the smooth re-integration of ex-convicts into society.

The project spearheaded by Crime Check Foundation (CCF) has trained a total of seventy-six (76) prison officers from seven (7) selected prison establishments who would screen inmates to identify the various psycho-social and arts therapy needs of inmates and provide them with the needed social and psychological assistance.

The beneficiary prisons are the Nsawam Medium Security, Kumasi Central, Sunyani Central, Koforidua Local, Winneba Local, Awutu Camp, and Ho Central Prisons.

Manuals, audios and audio-visual materials have been developed to guide the officers in providing the assistance to the prisoners.

The project is expected to be extended to cater for inmates in other prison establishments across the country.

The project was launched in August 2024 by the Director-General of the Ghana Prisons Service, represented by the Deputy Director-General of Prisons In-Charge of Finance and Administration, Matilda Baffoe-Bonnie (ESQ).

Mrs. Baffoe-Bonnie who is now the Director-General of the Prisons service lauded the initiative, indicating that it is a bold step toward achieving an effective correctional system.