The Care Agency has been offering therapeutic counselling services at HM Prison Gibraltar since December 2024. To date the counselling service has seen a total of twenty-two inmates and has offered over one hundred and twenty individual sessions.

A statement from the Government follows below:

This is a critical component of inmate rehabilitation and helps address  the psychological, emotional, and behavioural needs of incarcerated individuals. It aims to promote  a safer and more effective prison environment while at the same time reducing reoffending and  facilitating the successful reintegration of inmates into society. 

To date the counselling service has seen a total of twenty-two inmates and has offered over one  hundred and twenty individual sessions. Common themes among these include relationship  concerns, impulse control, anger management, substance misuse and childhood trauma. All  inmates who opt to receive counselling are assessed within a week of admission. They then work  with the prison counsellor to develop a bespoke treatment plan to help address their key issues. 

Counselling in prison helps provide inmates with a safe space where they can talk freely about the  worries and stressors of day-to-day prison life as well as their thoughts and feelings about their  past behaviour and their hopes and ambitions for the future. 

The counselling service will also include group therapy for inmates and a series of workshops and  presentations on key topics to do with decision making, drug and alcohol misuse, anxiety, social  reintegration, mental health, self-control and positive relationships. 

The service, which has been very well received by the inmates, works in collaboration with the  Prison GP, Hospital Officers, Prison Management and Gibraltar Mental Health Services to ensure  that all inmates receive support which considers their physical, psychological and emotional needs.