Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what use his Department has made of mindfulness-based techniques for (a) reducing stress and (b) improving well-being among prison staff.

Mindfulness workshops forms part of a range of mental and physical health wellbeing workshops on offer to prison staff, with over 200 wellbeing days provided to prison establishments over the last two years. The workshops are also available on request through the HMPPS bespoke wellbeing initiative, Wellness Together programme which provides a series of workshops to selected prison establishments over a 12-week period.

Some prisons also provide local independently organised staff mindfulness training sessions for instance, at lunch times.

More widely, confidential counselling, wellbeing/lifestyle advice, wellbeing workshops, training and coaching to prison staff are also available to prison staff.