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DIACEN Project

About

DIACEN is proposing a complex solution which is to prepare prisoners for release. It involves all relevant parties united in adult education activities, with the aim of fostering dialogue and establishing an effective learning platform.

The Dialogue Centre – Taking Further Prisoners’ Education Projects in Using Dialogue as Preparing for Release - DIACEN is based around the idea that the dialogue is a powerful method for delivering adult education. Building a community around authentic interaction could reduce massively the relapse / re-offend rates of the prisoners. The inmates need a programme for pre-release where all interested parties meet and develop together a solution with the motto: “Nothings for me that is made without me”.

Project Aims

In the understanding of the DIACEN partnership (following the OECD’s Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management) we will produce a number of Outputs (including trainings and events), those outputs will produce a Results right after project delivery at the level of our target group and later on will produce Outcomes impacting at a broader level our key stakeholders.

Specific goals include:

  • Provide a complex methodology of setting up the pre-release period which involves prisoners, educators, social workers, security prison staff and the larger community, for the creation of a learning pathway – from inside the prison towards the community;
  • Build a platform for educators and any prison professional, that delivers an education moment, to express their realities and thoughts on how they develop the pre-release period, capturing the weak points and recommending possible solutions;
  • Set-up a method for security prison staff (supported by the educators / social workers as mediators) to work together with the prisoners using dialogic methods, games, role-plays and following a guiding handbook;
  • Create a working method for the prisoner to develop together with the prison staff flexible resources and guidelines to help the prisoner in the first part after the release.
  • Develop a working system for the prison staff in order to cooperate with the local community, using community engagement methods, in finding out what are the best ways to assist the prisoner upon release and what is available in the immediate community as resources and support system for the ex-prisoner.

Outcomes

Short-Term Results:

  • over 30 staff / volunteers from the partner organizations (persons working in prison, prison systems, or training facilities) will be trained in developing practical activities based on the 4 outputs delivered;
  •  from the 5 National Administrations of Penitentiaries that will be involved in the project activities, an average of 1 % of the central staff, management staff, HR staff, and 1 % officers with custodial duties and officers with administrative duties will be involved in the research activities. This involvement will be: filling in surveys, some taking part in semi-structured interviews, providing study cases or access to relevant data. Also an average of 0.5% from the prison population will be asked to fill in a survey about their perception on the role of prison officers in prison learning. All these persons will not be just taking part in the research, but also be informed about the project activities, kept in contact with the national partners and informed about the project results.
  • 100 prisoners in the pre-release programs will take part in the activities developed as a direct result of the outputs
  • 100 community members will be involved in finding out best ways to assist ex-prisoners in the immediate period after release, thus creating a first step in continuous support network, inexistent in the partner countries to this date.

Mid-Term Results:

At this level the project DIACEN plans to have as results the DIACEN Concluding Report & Recommendation Paper promoted and supported by the National Administrations involved in the project. Also we plan to have the DIACEN Methodology made up of the 4 outputs developed, accepted for testing in at least 1 to 2 % of the prisons in each partner country.

Long-Term Results:

As a direct result of the activities made by each partner, we expect the DIACEN outputs to be recognized and accepted at European level as good practice and study case on developing the prison as a learning institution, where each participant contributes to the learning experiences of the others, and where the prison officer is a key element is supporting the delivery of prison education by the professionals in the system, to the inmates.

Project Partners

  • Associazione Antigone Onlus (ANTIGONE), Italy
  • Centrul Pentru Promovarea Invatarii Permanente (CPIP), Romania
  • Stichting foundation ICPA Office in Europe (ICPA), Netherlands
  • Qualify Just- IT Solutions and Consulting LDA (IPS), Portugal
  • Stowarzyszenie Rozwoju Inicjatyw Regionalnych “Lacjum (ARID Lacjum), Poland