ABSTRACT
A collaboration between the president founder of Psychologues du Monde Tunisie and the founder of the Room to Heal community approach leads to a group-based training programme for Tunisian prison workers. Human rights abuses in Tunisian prisons are widespread, affecting both the general prison population and those who have been detained under the Emergency Powers Act. Here, group and community ideas are applied to staff support and organisational culture in relation to the high levels of vicarious traumatisation amongst staff. The chapter describes how, through training and groupes de parole, 24 Tunisian psychologists work with prison psychologists, social workers, doctors and prison officers to reflect on the impact of the prison environment on all those within it. In this way, it shows how the project seeks to challenge the endemic violence within the prison system and to bring about changes to the culture of the system as a whole.
