VERLT is undeniably a complex and challenging subject. As such, monitoring teams tackling the issue should ideally possess a diversity of expertise. The SPT has recommended the following in its Guidelines on National Preventive Mechanisms: “Recalling the requirements of Articles 18 (1) and (2) of the Optional Protocol, the NPM should ensure that its staff have between them the diversity of background, capabilities and professional knowledge necessary to enable it to properly fulfil its NPM mandate. This should include, inter alia, relevant legal and 432 health-care expertise.” Detention monitoring in the VERLT-context may require expertise from additional professional backgrounds. When looking into VERLTrelated issues, detention monitoring bodies should, therefore, consider establishing a multidisciplinary and gender-balanced team comprised of, as may be required, educators, doctors, mental health professionals, social workers, representatives of different communities and faith groups, civic education experts, experts on different forms and manifestations of VERLT (including extreme right and ethnonationalist violent extremism) lawyers and experts on other subject matter. Tips for monitors Tips for monitors 3: The composition of the detention monitoring team Especially in relation to an issue as complex as VERLT, “healthcare expertise” for NPMs, as well as for other detention monitoring bodies, might in practice include a variety of health professionals, including, among others, doctors, forensic doctors, nurses, child specialists, psychiatrists and psychologists. Where a visit will look into the specific situation of returned “foreign terrorist fighters”, for example, the composition of the monitoring team might appropriately include experts with a specialization on post-traumatic stress disorder, on child care and psychology and, as far as women returnees are concerned, also on sexual and gender-based violence. Similarly, it would be imperative to include legal professionals in any team focusing on VERLT, and especially lawyers with expertise in counter-terrorism issues. Ideally, there should be a gender balance among all key professionals, including for health professionals, who may be required to physically examine prisoners. Female detainees who have experienced violence may only be willing to speak about this experience with a woman. Should the prisoners affected by VERLTrelated measures be foreign nationals or have different language backgrounds, it is recommended that individuals with appropriate language skills or interpreters are included in the team. 432 SPT, Guidelines on National Preventive Mechanisms, op. cit., note 105, para. 20. 89