Re-entry to society is challenging and inmates often feel unprepared for release. Insufficient human and social capital makes it difficult to cope with the challenges of everyday life outside prison. In Norway the aim of prisoner rehabilitation is to counteract new criminal acts, and make it possible for the convicted person to change his or her criminal patterns. This qualitative study aimed to explore and describe inmates' perceptions and experiences of how they were prepared for release from a Norwegian open prison. Three focus group interviews with inmates were conducted. A thematic content analysis of the data resulted in three categories: 1) life outside, 2) working as a community and 3) useful learning for the future. Our findings indicate that inmates were prepared in several ways to return to the society. One aspect was the social climate where inmates were treated with humanity by staff. Inmates received training in local democracy, and developed hope for the future, self-reliance and personal agency, which strengthened their process of preparing for release. Inhibiting factors seemed to be an emotional vulnerability, inadequate preparation for modern working life and poorly planned release preparation. This study indicates the importance of maintaining open prisons with humanistic values.

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From a salutogenic perspective, relational and reflective competencies are key to the success of competence building. Reflecting on and exploring one’s (life) experience in a continuous learning process can enhance salutogenic competence.This chapter, whose authors have many years of experience building health professionals’ salutogenic competence, is nicely illustrated with teaching and coaching examples drawn from (a) a master’s programme for students in various health professions, (b) salutogenic talk-therapy groups, (c) students in health promotion training programmes, and (d) on-the-job training of healthcare professionals working in childcare services.The chapter discusses the concept of “self-tuning,” referring to habitual self-sensitivity, reflection, and mobilising of resources, which can play a central role in all types of training. This chapter emphasises that trainers should strive to “live the talk,” developing their personal salutogenic capacity – in other words, do what you teach and be what you teach.

Vitenskapelig publikasjon «Kan vi hjelpe når krisa rammer?» Barnevern, smittevern og store forskjeller i tjenestene under covid-19-pandemien 'When crisis strikes, can we help?' Child welfare, infection control and substantial variances in services during the Covid-19 pandemic Vibeke Krane Førsteamanuensis og faggruppeleder, Senter for psykisk helse og rus, Institutt for helse-, sosial-og velferdsfag,

Background Lately, there has been a call for knowledge-based community public health strategies and for evaluating local public health interventions. In addition to contributing to the public health knowledge base, it is underlined that the evaluations should be formative for ongoing local processes. The community professionals often lack evaluation competency, and a university course (10 ECTS) about process- and self-evaluation has been developed and facilitated for local public health workers. Vestfold County Council and University of South-Eastern Norway have collaborated to develop the course. The course has a particular focus on Formative Dialogue Research (FDR). FDR strategies may emphasize both project impact and processes, and local competences. The FDR approaches also contributes to the public health knowledge base (Rønningen 2010). Objective To examine and discuss whether FDR in combinations with an evaluation course, may be an appropriate strategy to meet the new expectations for community public health evaluations. Results Preliminary results indicate that FDR in combination with a evaluation course, may be an appropriate and desirable approach in community public health projects. The local public health professionals welcome the course. The focus has until now been on the development of the course and the cooperation and dialogues between the university and the county. Questionnaire and interview data collected in September 2019 will exemplify and nuance these preliminary results. Conclusions So far, the developing process indicate that FDR in combination with a course in self- and process evaluation, support FDR as an appropriate evaluation approach in community public health projects and processes. Key messages The local public health workers often lack competences in project evaluation. FDR in combination with a comprehensive course in process and self-evaluation seem appropriate evaluation approaches in community public health projects.