The importance of mental health awareness training in a European probation training curriculum

In 2009 the CEP held a conference centring around the concept of a pan-European probation training curriculum. This article draws on the results of an evaluation of some training conducted in the UK to argue that mental health awareness training should form part of such a common training programme. The article outlines the potential benefits of making such training mandatory for staff working in probation systems across Europe. In addition, it identifies the role of instructional design in constructing learning resources which are flexible enough to be reconfigured to be relevant in different cultural contexts without diminishing the learning process