the rights of children in juvenile correctional facilities of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine” was developed. The monitoring was supported by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Ukraine and the European Commission in the framework of a joint project “Consolidation of Juvenile Justice Reforms against Torture and other Forms of IllTreatment of Children in Former Soviet Countries”. The Association UMDPL began development of methodological guidance on specifics of monitoring places of detention in the MIA and SPSU systems to be used by NPM monitors during visits to relevant institutions. The manuals are aimed at generalizing and structuring the experience of monitoring places of detention, providing description of the most effective methods of monitoring in order to increase effectiveness of NPM work on identification and recording instances of torture and cruel treatment. Establishment of an initiative group of NPM monitors Idea of establishing an initiative group of monitors appeared in December 2014 during a working meeting of NPM monitors. A group of active monitors from different cities and organizations, Oleksandr Hatiyatullin, Maryna Homenyuk, Valentyna Volyk, and Vira Yakovenko, undertook the development of ideas for coordination between all NPM participants. For HRIC, a participant in the process, this cooperation presented a new challenge as the Center’s team undertook arrangement of internal communications for the first time. The work was made possible due to organizational and financial support of the Human Rights and Justice Program of the International Renaissance Foundation. One of the first suggestions of the group was conducting cluster meetings for monitors from the eastern, western, central and southern regions. These events allowed for evaluation of the potential of monitors’ community, verification of the actual number of public monitors prepared for further participation in NPM activities, as well as their qualifications. We can state now that this systemic work creates solid foundation for a new quality level of self-organization of the community and its activities for preventing torture and cruel treatment in places of detention in Ukraine. Activities of the Expert Council on NPM The Expert council for realization of the national preventive mechanism (NPM) held two meetings during 2014 with the following issues on their agenda:  Approving the Special report of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights on NPM implementation in 2013;  Approving the Annual plan of NPM development in 2014;  Improvement of the NPM website and its harmonization with the relevant page of the Commissioner’s website; 37