Projects
CEP matchmaker project
CEP Matchmaker Project brings together individuals, teams, organisations, or groups among CEP members with a shared professional interest. Through peer-to-peer links and activities, the aim is to provide opportunities for sharing, exchanging and learning together as well as potential other benefits.
In the Matchmaker Project, an individual or team of officers with a particular curiosity or expertise in a field of work can ask CEP to make contact with colleagues to establish a link with others with shared interests or knowledge. For example, teams working in a rural area, with prisoners on release from custody or supervising older persons could seek others sharing similar challenges in other jurisdictions to share experiences, learn from each other and establish their own engagement.
The Confederation of European Probation (CEP) was established in 1981 as a network of European probation organisations to share knowledge, exchange expertise and support developments in the field of community sanctions in Europe.
CEP members and their staff represent a unique reservoir of knowledge and expertise about positive ways of working with people who offend to promote rehabilitation, reduce re-offending and make communities safer. Most importantly, CEP facilitates its members in working together, sharing expertise, learning with and supporting each other.
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, CEP and its members were innovators in sustaining that positive engagement and sharing. Social media, new technology, greatly increased levels of remote working and online meetings and conversations have sustained that contact. The CEP newsletter features working during Covid-19 and, more recently, the Day in the Life of a Probation Officer articles that have attracted huge readerships and exceptional interest. There is a clear strong desire among CEP members to learn more about how others, in similar posts, work and live in other countries.
The CEP Matchmaker Project has been developed from ideas and suggestions by CEP members. It seeks to harness that curiosity and use the new communications media to facilitate direct contact, sharing of experiences and learning opportunities among members.
In the Matchmaker Project CEP will act as a contact point and matchmaker between interested members and their staff to bring people together. It will establish contacts and links between services, teams or individuals with common interests and curiosity to meet up with each other to share and explore experiences together. Once in contact, the members will determine the topics, mode of contact, level of engagement and any development.
If you or your organisation are interested in participating in the Matchmaker Project please contact the CEP secretariat: secr@cep-probation.org.
CEP is ready to facilitate and provide support for exchanging and mutual learning!
Our knowledge of Interagency Coorperation
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Check out the latest news and updates on this project’s focus area.
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A new practitioner guide is currently being piloted across the UK that aims to support professionals working with neurodivergent clients for more inclusive domestic abuse perpetrator interventions. The guide has been co developed for domestic abuse perpetrator intervention practitioners who work with neurodivergent clients, translating research findings into practical guidance for day to day practice.
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Uncategorized
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There is an urgent yet insufficiently recognised human-rights and public-health crisis unfolding across Europe: the systematic imprisonment of mentally ill individuals who have already been assessed by courts or psychiatric professionals as requiring treatment in secure psychiatric hospitals rather than confinement in correctional facilities. Evidence indicates that structural failings—including bed shortages, procedural delays, and fragmented legal and administrative frameworks—have produced a situation in which thousands of vulnerable individuals remain in prison in direct contravention of judicial orders, clinical assessments, and international human-rights obligations. This constitutes a largely invisible mental-health scandal, obscured by inconsistent data collection, political sensitivities, and the general invisibility of people in custody.
Partners
Memorandum of Understanding Signed Between CEP and RESCALED
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On 10 December 2025, at the CEP Headquarters in Utrecht, CEP and RESCALED signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at strengthening cooperation in areas of mutual interest. The MoU was signed by Rogier Elshout, Chair of Rescaled and Jana Špero Kamenjarin, CEP Secretary General, with the signing ceremony attended by Helen De Vos, Rescaled Executive Director and Daniel Danglades, CEP Vice-President.
Through this partnership, both organizations will work together to develop joint activities, exchange expertise, and support initiatives that advance their shared objectives.
This MoU reflects a commitment to transparent communication and the creation of new opportunities for joint projects and broader community impact.
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