The International Ombudsman Institute has organized a working meeting in cooperation with the Association for the Prevention of Torture in Vilnius, Lithuania, on June 21-23, 2016. The theme of the meeting was: “Monitoring of psychiatric institutions”. The meeting was aimed at sharing experience of national preventive mechanisms in monitoring of mental institutions, analyzing best practices, indentifying a variety of risk factors and studying skills and techniques necessary for overcoming challenges in this field. Within the framework of the meeting, a study visit was paid to a psychiatric facility in the city of Rokiškis.

A three-day workshop was attended by representatives of national preventive mechanisms from 17 countries. The Public Defender's Office was represented at the meeting by Nika Kvaratskhelia, Head of the Department of Prevention and Monitoring, and the Department’s research analyst, Akaki Kukhaleishvili.

The meeting was hosted by the Lithuanian Ombudsman's Office. The activities were conducted by experts of the Association for the Prevention of Torture. Medical and psychiatric experts were also involved in the event, including an expert from the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture. They shared their experience with the participants of the meeting and actively participated in the discussions. It should be noted that representatives of Georgian Public Defender's Department of Prevention and Monitoring shared the experience of Georgia’s National Preventive Mechanism with the participants and received high appraisal from the experts.