“You have a second chance”
An innovative Odyssea program for prisoners and released former drug users in collaboration with KETHEA EN DRASEI.
Odyssea in collaboration with KETHEA EN DRASEI, with funding from the Ioannis S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation, is implementing an innovative program for the reintegration of former drug users who are in custody or have recently been released from prison. The program has a duration of 12 months and is estimated to benefit a total of more than 140 people with therapeutic support, vocational training, and employment promotion services.
More specifically, the target group of the program will consist of men and women aged between 18 and 55 years old, who are in the process of mental rehabilitation from prisons:
a) Korydallos Detention Centre I (men)
b) Women’s Detention Centre Eleonas Thiva
(c) Korydallos Detention Centre II (women)
or have recently been released from prison and are continuing mental rehabilitation treatment at the Centre for Released Prisoners and the Centre for Social Reintegration of KETHEA EN DRASEI in the centre of Athens.
Moreover, in order to avoid institutionalization, but mainly to ensure the scientific integrity of the educational process, beneficiaries who are not substance users, such as unemployed, immigrants, refugees and other vulnerable groups are added to the target group from the population of people who apply for participation in Odyssea’s educational programs, and who will jointly attend the educational programs and participate in the promotion to employment processes.
The beneficiaries of the program will receive vocational training and employment promotion services, with the aim of reintegration into society through reconnection with education, motivation for development and vocational rehabilitation, elements that are key objectives of the KETHEA EN DRASEI Treatment Program. It will be possible to hold counselling sessions on skills so that participants can be psychologically strengthened for the change that will occur in their daily lives.
The innovative dimension of the program lies in the combination of actions inside and outside the prison system, during the period of detention, and in the period after the release of the beneficiaries. More specifically, the proposed program of job specialization and training is of particular importance for the vulnerable group of former users deprived of their liberty, as it creates an integrated reintegration framework combined with purely therapeutic interventions. With regard to the latter, the long-standing specialised experience of KETHEA EN DRASEI with the operation of the Mental Rehabilitation Programmes within the detention centres and the Centre for Reception and Social Reintegration of Released Persons, is the guarantee of the effectiveness of the synergy and the main axis on which the innovation of the project is based, which combines therapeutic support, skills counselling and vocational training, recognising the complexity of the coexistence of the stigma of imprisonment, dependence on psychotropic substances and the need for social reintegration for this target group.
The percentage of women participating in the program will be a minimum of 40%. In particular, it is estimated that in the first phase of the program, which will involve in-prison empowerment, 40 people will receive vocational training in Cooking, Carpentry, and Basic Digital Skills.
In the second phase, integration into society, 60 people will receive vocational training in horizontal skills, 36 people will receive vocational training according to Odyssea’s training program and all beneficiaries will receive employment services with the aim of at least 40 people finding jobs.
The two organisations have worked together in the past under the “Treatment through Creation” action.
The project is implemented with the kind support of the Ioannis S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation.
A few words about KETHEA EN DRASEI
KETHEA EN DRASEI is an integrated mental rehabilitation program that operates inside and outside the prison system, in order to support the members under treatment to realize the reasons why they were led to use and to redefine their role in society as active citizens. The ultimate goals of social rehabilitation are economic, employment, social and interpersonal integration into the social fabric.