Part II: Tools for an effective follow-up and implementation and problems. It thereby creates credibility as well as visibility for the NPM and thus constitutes a chance to establish trust and a cooperative relationship, ultimately contributing to increased willingness to implement recommendations. However, some NPMs have expressed reservations about performing training activities, which may go beyond the NPM’s core mandate and require too many resources. In such cases, they may nonetheless consider to occasionally participate in or evaluate relevant activities carried out by others. While for many NPMs, the main task is to monitor places of detention, report on the treatment of detainees and make recommendations, some NPMs also develop training activities for different actors and several NPMs have found this to be highly beneficial for their follow-up work. Many NPMs (e.g. in Cyprus, Estonia, France, Poland) have carried out training for police officers, judges, heads of social care homes, staff of places of detention and others. For example in Cyprus, the NPM has given an initial training for police officers working in the Migration Detention Centre in 2013 that included an extensive presentation on human rights and the treatment of detainees. The initial training is repeated every 6 months on different human rights issues that arise in the specific place of detention. During 2014, the NPM also participated in a training program for prison staff with presentations on human rights of prisoners, particularly focusing on non-discrimination and the treatment of foreign prisoners. Moreover, the Cypriot NPM provides human rights trainings to police officers as per request of the Police Academy. Throughout all of these trainings, the NPM explains its mandate and powers as NPM and also introduces some findings and recommendations. The Estonian NPM, besides providing human rights trainings to social care service providers has used trainings for its own staff to invite representatives of the monitored institutions, e.g. the Estonian Social Insurance Board, and has held a specific information and training day at its offices inviting representatives of the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Estonian Health Insurance Fund. According to these NPMs’ experiences training has not only been useful to strengthen the capacities of the participants and increase the visibility of NPMs but also to explain the rationale behind the recommendations to the authorities and ultimately also increase their willingness to implement them. It has been described as an important place for dialogue, providing the officials with room to explain their own arguments and concerns and thus ultimately constitutes an important means to establish better contacts with officials and strengthen mutual respect and trust, particularly those on the lower, operational level. Other NPMs decide not to carry out training for resource reasons or do not see this as part of their mandate. However, participation in training only from time to time may still be useful to present the mandate and work of the NPM and to evaluate the state’s training efforts. The German NPM for example does not carry out training itself but established contacts with the national training academies for prison staff to advise on the development of effective human rights training and from time to time also participated as an observer in order to present the NPM mandate. While it depends on each NPM’s strategy and resources whether it carries out trainings, they may play an important role in the prevention of torture. Thus, at least an occasional participation in trainings by NPM members may be useful to present the NPM and its recommendations as well as to evaluate the training’s effectiveness in view of torture prevention. - 59 -