MONITORING PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTIONS Finally, the risks of overmedication, including the use of chemical restraint, which often responds to a wish to control rather than to provide care, are some of the practices that require strict supervision to prevent abuse and should therefore be identified by monitoring bodies during their visits. Monitoring psychiatric institutions and the role of NPMs. Monitoring bodies play a key role since, under international treaties (OPCAT or European Convention for the Prevention of Torture), state authorities are obliged to ensure unhindered access to places of detention. Despite their different approaches to monitoring psychiatric institutions, all NPMs at the Symposium acknowledged that non-discrimination is one of their main guiding principles. Some of them still encounter obstacles that are both internal (lack of NPM members’ awareness and training on rights and needs of persons with disabilities) and external (lack of access to the institutions, questioning of their legitimacy to carry out this type of monitoring in “care settings”). However, most NPMs and the SPT now include this monitoring in their visit programmes (the CPT having already many years of expertise in this area). The Symposium also gave NPMs the opportunity to discuss the challenges they face from a methodological point of view, in particular the need for multidisciplinary visiting teams and the role of health specialists (including psychiatrists) within those teams. A constructive dialogue with staff at the establishments being visited is also essential to enable the authorities to have a better understanding of NPMs’ mandate and, where appropriate, be made aware of the changes that are needed in the institution. The importance of interviews in private with the persons deprived of liberty and the need for NPM members to receive specific training on how to handle these interviews was also discussed. Finally, several good practices were identified, in particular the experience of NPMs which integrate the perspective of former users of psychiatric services in their work, including during visits. 7