Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan TD, congratulated the graduates at the Recruit Prison Officer Higher Certificate of Arts in Custodial care (HCCC) graduation in Marino College Dublin, this evening.
The Higher Certificate in Custodial Care is a two year part-time programme, developed and delivered jointly by the Irish Prison Service and Waterford IT, which is designed to develop the professional competencies of Prison Service staff in working with prisoners. The Higher Certificate of Arts in Custodial Care is intended to facilitate a greater understanding of how officers can confront challenges through the exploration of different subjects including, Resilience, Mental Health, Social Psychology and Human Rights.
In his address to graduates, Minister Flanagan emphasised the importance of the values of the Irish Prison Service. He said:
The Irish Prison Service values – Teamwork, Integrity, Potential, Safety and Support are values that we genuinely want and need you to live every day, in your work life and beyond. But while each is important, the one I want to highlight particularly today, is Integrity.
By acting with integrity you will gain the trust of your colleagues; the trust of your managers and supervisors; and most importantly of all, the trust of the prisoners in your care.
I congratulate each one of you on successfully completing what I am sure you found to be a very difficult but rewarding course. And I know that completing this course over the past 2 years has not been easy, given that you have had to balance your education with the demands of what can be a challenging and difficult job.
I am very confident that each one of you graduating here today has the ability and resilience needed to fulfil the duties of an Irish Prison Officer. Your profession, and the work you do, which in many respects goes unseen, plays a key role in making the lives of every person in this country safer. It is important to note that it is not by locking people up each day that you achieve our goal of a safer Ireland, but it is about the role that each of you play, working with prisoners, and the hope and inspiration that you can give to them.
The Irish Prison Service has made significant progress in the delivery of training to existing staff. Not only is the training designed and delivered by experienced operational staff, but a significant amount of training is delivered in the “live” environment of a prison.
After the first 6 weeks of training in the Irish Prison Service College, Recruit Prison Officers move to the new training centre in the West Dublin Campus allowing them to complete the final 6 weeks of initial training in a prison environment.
This training is accredited by Waterford IT as the Higher Certificate of Arts in Custodial Care.
Note for Editors
Please see Minister Flanagan’s speech from the event below this Press Release, also under embargo to 7:30pm, Wednesday 13th November.
For further information please contact the Irish Prison Service Press Office at: pressoffice@irishprisons.ie