Dear all... today is the last official day of the project. We would like to thank all of you for following our adventures during this time. We are really proud of all the work we did during this project. Project leaders, experts, probation managers and officers, the twinning office... we all tried to do our best to make something great out of missions, activities, reports and meetings. You can check our last activities here: https://pravosudje.gov.hr/pristup-informacijama-6341/ostale-informacije/projekti/eu-projekti/transition-facility-support-to-further-development-and-strengthening-of-the-probation-service-in-croatia/11801 In particular, we would like to thank Jana Špero for her support during this time and of course... for these special good-bye gifts!!

Dear all, yesterday we had our last mission of the project. The company OPUS together with the Croatian Sector for Probation organized a round table to inform professionals and media about the results of the electronic monitoring pilot project that took place in Croatia during 100 days. Jana Špero, Vedran Smiljanić, Goran Brkić, Pedro Ferreira Marum and Robert Bošnjak addressed the audience about the benefits of the potential future implementation of EM in Croatia. The STE Pedro Ferreira Marum introduced a brief history of EM and the good practices of Belgium and other European countries regarding electronic monitoring. We wish our Croatian colleagues all the best and good luck in their future endeavors on this!

The closing ceremony of the Twinning project “Support to further development and strengthening of the Probation Service in Croatia” financed by the European Union and jointly implemented by the Croatian Ministry of Justice, the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions of Spain, the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP) and the German Foundation for International Legal Cooperation (IRZ) was held on Friday, 30 June 2017 at 11:00 a.m. at the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Croatia, Ulica grada Vukovara 49, Zagreb. In the introductory speech, State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice Mr Juro Martinović emphasized that this was a useful and well-implemented project through which the best European experiences were exchanged, thus improving the probation service in Croatia. Representative of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain to the Republic of Croatia, Celia Abril Paredes, pointed out that during the project there was a fruitful cooperation and that the experience of this twinning project will further enhance very friendly bilateral relationship between Republic of Croatia and the Kingdom of Spain. Mr Enrique Ballano Rubio, Deputy Director of the General Vice-directorate of Alternative Sentences and Measures, Secretariat General of Penitentiary Institutions of Spain emphasised the successful co-operation during the project and stated that they’re open to new collaborations in the future, while Ms Esther Montero Pérez de Tudela, Project Leader, Secretariat General of Penitentiary Institutions of Spain and Mr Ioan Durnescu, Junior Project leader, German Foundation for International Legal Cooperation, presented the main components and the results of the project. Resident Twinning Adviser, Ms Laura Negredo López, and Ms Jana Špero, Project Leader and Head of the Sector for Probation in the Ministry of Justice thanked all the participants of the project for their successful cooperation. The overall objective of this project, with the total budget of 700.000 EUR, was to strengthen the efficiency of the Judiciary in the Republic of Croatia in the area of criminal justice system. The project started on 15 April 2016 and will end on 15 July 2017. This project aimed at contributing the Probation Service's trajectory through improving the institutional capacity of the Probation Service, the training of probation officers for the work with criminal offenders of specific categories, the implementation of an electronic surveillance pilot project and the increase of public awareness about the benefits of alternatives to imprisonment, both from the financial and social perspective. https://pravosudje.gov.hr/vijesti/zavrsen-projekt-daljnjeg-razvoja-probacijske-sluzbe/16535

Last week we had the distinct privilege of conducting the last training under the scope of our twinning project. Our Spanish experts, Zulema Altamirano and Susana Sánchez conducted a training of trainers (ToT) in order to help 7 probation officers hone their presentation skills and improve the way they impart their knowledge to new generations of probation officers. The ToT was focused on the acquisition of skills, knowledge and attitudes related to the treatment programs that will soon be implemented in Croatia and that were also developed under this project: a program for sex offenders, a program for fighting against gender-based violence and a program for preventing new crimes and violence. The activity was very challenging due to the fact that the probation officers were asked to actively participate in all the exercises which were quite out of the box. At the end of the week, the participants had to present one module of their program in order to showcase the acquired skills, their competence in conducting training and their knowledge of the contents. All in all, it was an intense week with a lot of personal and professional growth but both the trainers and the future trainers were extremely satisfied with the end result!

A Croatian delegation composed of probation managers and officers visited Madrid last week to exchange experiences and practices with our colleagues from the Department for Alternative Measures and Sentences of the Spanish Penitentiary Institutions. The focus was on the implementation of treatment programs for offenders on probation, covering interventions for specific categories of offenders such as violent offenders and those committing gender-based violence, sexual offending and family violence. They also learned about some recent Spanish practices related to the development of programs for offenders with mental disorders, with drug-dependency issues and the new program for vocational training. The importance of the cooperation with non-governmental associations and universities was also highlighted during the study visit. We hope our Croatian friends had a great time in Madrid!

During the last few months, the Croatian Probation service has managed to implement electronic surveillance with the help of the Judiciary, the State attorneys, the Police and the Prison system. Electronic surveillance is an innovative tool that contributes to social reintegration and community safety. The pilot project officially finished on May 28th, 2017 when experts from Spain and Belgium came to Zagreb to perform the final monitoring and to check the first results. They analyzed the satisfaction of all the stakeholders involved in the pilot project, as well as the satisfaction of the participants and their families. The experts took a closer look at the implementation of the protocol of cooperation during the pilot project in order to see how it could be improved in the future. The preliminary results show that this experience has successfully contributed to a better understanding on how electronic monitoring can be implemented in Croatia in the near future. We will learn more about these results in the next few weeks!

Visibility is one of the main focus of our project! We are working hard to make the Croatian Probation Service even more visible among the Croatian society and institutions. Last week, STE Stefan Scherrer and Iuliana Carbunaru worked on a brochure and leaflet that contains all the relevant information about how Probation works in Croatia. These PR materials will be available both in Croatian and English and will be disseminated among stakeholders and the public. They also prepared a new online newsletter for the Probation Service. They designed the outline with the help of the PR Department of the Ministry of Justice and collected interesting articles prepared by the Probation Service. It will be available in their website in Croatian and English soon. Good job!

On Tuesday, May 16, 2017, we helped organize a conference of the Sector for Probation dubbed “The Past, Present and Future of the Probation Service in Croatia.” After an introductory speech by Mr. Kristian Turkalj, State Secretary from the Ministry of Justice, we dived right into the work of the Probation Service as Ms. Dijana Todosiev, Head of the Central Office of the Sector for Probation, told the attendees more about the work and the results of the Probation service in recent years, focusing on the past year. Ms. Jana Špero, Head of the Sector for Probation, and Ms. Marinka Orlić, Deputy of the Attorney General, talked about the Electronic monitoring pilot project while Ms. Laura Negredo López, our RTA, gave an overview of the whole project. Our project leaders, Ms. Esther Montero Pérez de Tudela and Mr. Ioan Durnescu, both focused on one component of the project, Component I and Component IV respectively. We thought it would be a great idea to ask two people who participated in an activity of the Component II, dealing with the development of ongoing education in probation, to share their own experiences so we asked Mr. Jesús Guerrero, from the Penitentiary Center in Álava, and Ms. Vesna Zelić Ferenčić, from the Probation office Zagreb I, to tell us more about conducting and receiving the training. Furthermore, we had two professors from the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, Mr. Neven Ricijaš and Ms. Irma Kovčo Vukadin, give us more detail about the Probation service from the university’s point of view. Last but not least, Ms. Jana Špero took the stage again to share the future steps for the development of the Probation service with the audience. It was a great conference as we had more than 40 participants from different institutions (Ministry of Justice, Prison Service, Judiciary, Police, State Attorney Office, University, etc.) join us! We hope everybody enjoyed it as much as we did!

The Electronic Monitoring pilot project that the Probation Service is implementing is currently halfway done. The Short Term Expert Carmen Martínez Aznar came last week to perform the midterm evaluation. She met with all the relevant stakeholders to assess the current implementation issues and start preparing the final evaluation. She insisted that all the persons at the table – judges, prosecutors, police, prison and probation staff- are making History in Croatia as these are the first EM devices in the country. And she was right!

This Tuesday, April 25, 2017, we finally opened our photography exhibition titled “Under probation: Lived experiences” at the Music Pavilion of the Zrinjevac Park. The idea behind the exhibition was to raise public awareness on what probation is and it means to be on probation. Who better to do that than probation officers and offenders themselves? Since a picture is worth a thousand words, photography was chosen as the medium for bringing this topic closer to the public eye. We received more than 120 photos from all around Croatia and our jury selected the best 20. You can still check these out until April 30, 2017. We would like to thank Ms Sanja Mišević, a State Secretary from the Ministry of Justice, Ms Elena Bravo, Deputy Chief of Mission from the Spanish Embassy, Mr Thomas Lipp, Attaché for Consular Affairs of the German Embassy, Ms Jana Špero, the Head of the Sector from Probation and our project leaders Ms Esther Montero and Mr Ioan Durnescu for making such interesting, casual opening speeches. We would also like to thank other members of our jury, Ms Ivana Paradžiković and Ms Lucija Ćustić - Luce for introducing the three winners for the categories of “Best Photo by Probation Officer”, “Best Photo by a Probationer” and “Best Photo selected by the social media.”

Preparing for: Under supervision. The lived experience Photo exhibition. Zagreb, Zrinjevac Square, 24-30 Aprill You are all invited :)

We would like to remind you that the opening ceremony of our exhibition “UNDER PROBATION: Lived experiences” will take place tomorrow, April 25, at 5 PM at the Music Pavillion on the Nikola Šubić Zrinski Square. Please come join us, take a stroll through the park and enjoy the photos! https://www.facebook.com/events/900064283467711/