Prison Staff, Probation Officers & Volunteers
High stress and burnout are common, yet mental health training is limited. HOPE equips staff with tools to manage their well-being while supporting people who have been sentenced.
Erasmus+ KA220-ADU · 2025 – 2027
Building hope through mental health in justice.
HOPE
Holistic Outreach for (former) Prisoner and Employee Mental Health — a European partnership empowering frontline and community-based actors to become mental health champions.
- Programme
- Erasmus+
- Action
- KA220-ADU
- Field
- Adult Education
- Period
- 2025 – 2027
About the project
A bottom-up approach to mental health in criminal justice.
The growing burden of mental health issues in justice settings places unprecedented strain on prison staff, communities, rehabilitation services and public resources. HOPE aims to empower grassroots actors in the criminal justice system to adapt, implement and evaluate inclusive and sustainable mental health and wellbeing practices for their justice setting.
Main priority
Creating and promoting learning opportunities among all citizens and generations.
Additional priority
Inclusion and diversity in all fields of education, training, youth and sport.
Topics addressed by the project
Physical and mental health well-being
Human rights and rule of law inclusion
Promoting equality and non-discrimination
Project objectives
What HOPE sets out to achieve
Identify mental health needs across all stakeholders in a criminal justice setting
Show how existing mental health practices can be adapted to justice settings
Implement and pilot holistic mental health initiatives
Evaluate and measure impact through robust frameworks
Ensure sustainability and influence policy at EU level
Train mental health champions across justice systems
Concrete Results
All of our findings are compiled and presented in a handbook.
Mental Health Needs and Resource Mapping to inform tailored interventions
Guidelines for adapting mental health programs to criminal justice settings
Pilot initiatives demonstrating scalable, low-cost interventions
Training programs for prison staff, NGOs, and community workers
Evaluation framework to ensure long-term sustainability and impact measurement
Dissemination through local, national, and EU channels to promote policy change and better mental health services
Target groups
Who HOPE is built for
HOPE serves the people who shape mental health outcomes in justice settings every day — and the policymakers who can scale what works.
Justice-affected & Former Justice-affected Persons
Many people who have been sentenced suffer from untreated mental health conditions. HOPE provides low-resource strategies to improve well-being, learning engagement, and reintegration.
NGOs, Volunteers & Communities
Volunteers, communities and families lack structured mental health training. HOPE provides resources and training to strengthen support networks for former people who have been sentenced.
Decision-Makers & Policy Influencers
Mental health in criminal justice is underfunded and overlooked. HOPE generates evidence-based recommendations to guide policy changes and funding allocation.
Innovation
What makes HOPE innovative?
HOPE builds on existing competencies of people working or volunteering in the criminal justice system — and their families and communities — by integrating evidence-based mental health practices into real-world prison settings.
The project trains mental health champions: justice professionals, NGOs, volunteers, families and community actors equipped to deliver effective, low-cost interventions.
A key innovation is HOPE's focus on generating evidence for future policy and funding decisions across four justice jurisdictions in Europe — bridging the gap between theory, practice and policy.
The challenge
Addressing mental health gaps in criminal justice
- Effective mental health treatment reduces recidivism, lowering crime and associated costs.
- Many incarcerated people leave without proper mental health support, increasing reoffending risks.
- Prison staff and volunteers face high stress and burnout, yet receive little mental health support.
- Justice staff lack training in mental health recognition, hindering rehabilitation.
Engagement
How participating organisations engage
- Each partner country has at least one prison involved, ensuring direct access to people who have been sentenced and staff.
- Participants receive HOPE training, integrating mental health support into daily routines.
- Pilot interventions in prisons allow people who have been sentenced to apply mental health techniques.
- NGOs and reintegration services test and adapt HOPE materials to support post-release mental health.
- Workshops, online training, and open-access materials ensure sustainability and long-term adoption.
In HOPE We Are Planning To
Building a sustainable future for mental health in justice
Expand mental health-first approaches beyond employment coaching, ensuring broader psychosocial support
Create structured partnerships between justice, education, and health sectors to enhance reintegration services
Train for scalable and sustainable mental health support
The HOPE project is designed to promote tangible synergies between education, training, and justice by integrating mental health awareness and training into criminal justice settings, ensuring cross-sector collaboration and upskilling in evaluation methods in order to demonstrate both short-term and long-term impact.
Added Value at European Level
Cross-border collaboration for justice and mental health
The HOPE project brings significant European added value by tackling mental health challenges in the criminal justice system through cross-border collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
Mental health in prisons is a shared concern across EU countries at both health and justice policy levels, with shared recognition that mental health service access should be inclusive, yet often remains insufficient.
Good practices frequently remain confined within national justice systems due to differences in legislation, prison management, and rehabilitation strategies.
HOPE creates a framework for scalable and transferable solutions, enabling effective interventions to be adapted across diverse European jurisdictions.
By bringing together expertise from multiple EU countries, HOPE demonstrates that mental health support strategies can be holistic, adaptable, flexible, and effective across varied prison systems.
Through transnational cooperation, HOPE enables cross-pollination of ideas, resulting in higher-quality interventions tested across multiple legal and cultural contexts.
Join the HOPE community.
Whether you work inside the justice system, support reintegration, train practitioners or shape policy — there is a role for you in HOPE. Get in touch to collaborate or follow our progress.