Who We Are?

The project

Prisons Managing Volunteers in EU (VOLPRIS) project is a three-year partnership, funded by the Erasmus+ Programme. VOLPRIS aims to invest in the qualification of volunteering management in prison to have a positive impact upon volunteers’ daily work effectiveness, and therefore on reoffending rates. Volunteers consistently bring to prison something that paid-staff cannot bring: they represent the community side of the sentence to the offender, and help this often complex group keep emotional and physical ties which support successful (re)inclusion on release.

VOLPRIS brings together eight organisations from five European Member States. Our partnership reflects a wide range of experience across the criminal justice System (CJS). Partners not only bring their particular expertise, but previous working relationships with other partners that serves to underline their commitment to the value of Voluntary Sector Organisations (VSOs) in the CJS.

We have a shared desire to contribute to an engaged and active Society, where volunteering is an expression of solidarity and European values, but also for safer communities, where prisoners are fully supported to integrate back into their communities and address issues which lead to their offending. Website of project https://www.volpris.eu/

OUR GOALS

Explore mutual learning opportunities between Prisons and VSOs by creating exchange frameworks which will facilitate the comparability between different EU prison practices regarding volunteering;
Identify key performance indicators between National Prison Administrations and volunteer organisations within secure settings;
Develop a training curriculum and programme to support the development of a CJS volunteer manager profile, and develop a European Volunteer Managers training guide;
Establish common European minimum standards to train volunteers working in prison environment and to assess the quality of volunteer organisations and/or programmes;
Promote collaborative training to take advantage of scale and creativity to ensure a common baseline message and reduce delivery costs.

WHAT WE EXPECT

Increased exchange and collaboration between countries, organisations and programmes on the topic of Criminal Justice System Volunteering Management;
Increased understanding of each partners’ needs, experience and working reality, namely the use and exchange of innovative practices;
Increased comparability and better balance between countries’ on CJS volunteering managers’ practices, knowledge and experience;
Detailed and sustainable information source of wider online support to the deepen knowledge between countries, organisation and programmes, enabling to building conjoint programmes, mobilities, shadowing, study visits and capacity building programmes besides providing critical insights on CJS Volunteer Programmes management strategic development.