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Programme: Erasmus+
Action Type: KA220-VET - Cooperation partnerships in vocational education and training
Field: Vocational Education and Training
Project title: FLEX-ability: Developing Flexible Psychopedagogical Abilities in Prison Staff Dealing with Dyslexic Inmates
Project acronym: FLEX-ability
Project Number: 2025-1-DE02-KA220-VET-000354207
Implementation period: 2025 – 2027

SHORTLY ABOUT THE FLEX-ability PROJECT
A key priority of FLEX-ability project is to enhance the professional skills of correctional staff working in prison education by developing and expanding their psycho-pedagogical abilities to support dyslexic learners in correctional settings. By equipping staff with innovative teaching methods, the project fosters inclusive and engaging learning environments, increasing their motivation to contribute effectively to the educational process. This, in turn, promotes civic engagement within the prison system and beyond, aligning with national strategies for the social integration of justice-affected persons.
Empowering prison staff with awareness and training on dyslexia enables them to better support dyslexic learners, reducing frustration and misunderstandings that can lead to behavioural issues. Developing specialised teaching methods and training correctional educators is essential to improving literacy, rehabilitation, and long-term integration.
Main priority according to the objectives of the project: Improving quality assurance in vocational education and training.
Additional priority according to the objectives of the project: Common values, civic engagement and participation, inclusion and diversity in all fields of education, training, youth and sport.
Topics addressed by the project: Initial and continuous training for teachers, trainers and other education staff, new learning and teaching methods and approaches, inclusion, promoting equality and non-discrimination.

FLEX-ability project objectives
Dyslexia is a neurological condition that affects the language-processing areas of the brain, making it difficult for individuals to learn reading and spelling. It is often inherited and remains lifelong, but scientific research has recently provided evidence-based interventions that can help struggling readers. Unfortunately, many adults with dyslexia do not receive this support early enough, making literacy challenges particularly prevalent in prison populations.
To create a more inclusive and effective prison education system, correctional educators must be equipped with the right skills and strategies to engage adults with learning disorders, such as dyslexia. The project builds on and complements previous initiatives by addressing existing gaps in diagnosing dyslexia among justice-affected persons and developing a standardized screening tool. Additionally, it expands upon previous methodologies by integrating digital solutions, making educational content more accessible and adaptable for correctional settings.
The objectives of FLEX-ability are:
- strengthening correctional educators' ability to identify key characteristics of prison-based education and equipping them with specialized tools to support people who have been sentenced with learning difficulties.
- enhancing staff psycho-pedagogical skills to screen and assess people who have been sentenced with dyslexia and develop tailored interventions that ensure a flexible and adaptable approach to teaching.
- improving prison educators' ability to effectively engage dyslexic adult learners using innovative ICT based teaching methods.
By empowering prison educators with these skills, the project aims to enhance learning opportunities for dyslexic learners in correctional settings, support rehabilitation and integration, and ultimately reduce recidivism through education.

What needs does FLEX-ability address?
Prison education faces significant barriers that limit its effectiveness. While security measures are essential, they often negatively impact learning and teaching by restricting access to ICT, reducing teaching time, and limiting the use of learning resources. Additionally, prison educators lack essential tools such as sufficient teaching materials, access to justice-affected persons' educational records, and adequate staff support to provide continuous, high-quality education. A major challenge is that existing rehabilitative interventions do not address learning disorders. Many justice-affected persons have low literacy levels, cognitive disabilities, or undiagnosed dyslexia. Current educational, psychological, and social interventions assume that they have typical cognitive development, yet a significant percentage struggle with reading comprehension and written content processing.
Furthermore, correctional officers and prison staff are not trained to identify or address dyslexia. The responsibility for recognising and adapting to learning disorders is often left to schoolteachers in prison, who may lack the resources and institutional support to make a meaningful impact. Without proper screening and tailored interventions, justice-affected persons with learning difficulties face greater educational exclusion, which in turn affects their rehabilitation, personal development, and reintegration prospects.

Project target group
- Prison staff (correctional officers, educators, psychologists, social workers) with role in educational training
- Learners in correctional settings (between 21-60 years old, male, independent of educational level, ethnic background and religion)
- Trainers from scientific/academical/educational environment
- General public (social actors, policy makers, Ministry of Justice, NGOs and employers at local, national and international level)

Expected qualitative impact on participants
- Enhanced professional competencies for working with dyslexic learners in correctional settings, in raising awareness of learning needs and of the impact lack of support.
- Greater awareness of the need for continuous professional development of all prison staff but particularly those working on educational reintegration pathways.
- Adoption of a more adaptable, inclusive teaching style for dyslexic learners and first proof of a piloted tool that has been used across European jurisdictions.
- Strengthened skills in diagnosing, adapting, and tailoring interventions for adults with learning disorders.
- Increased job satisfaction and confidence among prison educators.
- Improved learning outcomes for dyslexic learners in correctional settings through innovative teaching methods.

Added value at European level
This project offers a novel, piloted instrument to pre-screen adults entering the criminal justice system for learning needs that have never formally been diagnosed or supported.
Even when dyslexia is identified outside of prison, EU general education systems often lack the necessary resources to help individuals engage in learning. Teaching in prisons requires more than following regulations; educators must be equipped with specialized training to effectively support learning needs. Implementing a standardised dyslexia awareness raising and pre-screening tool across EU prison systems will enhance the identification of learners in correctional settings with learning disabilities and enable the development of tailored educational approaches.
Knowing the potential scale of the impact of dyslexia in prisons is one value added, but another is having material piloted across jurisdictions, so that transferability has already been evidenced. This initiative's key aim is to increase justice-affected persons participation in learning programs, helping them build essential skills before release. Applying this model across multiple prison systems will show it's possible to improve correctional staff effectiveness, creating a wider impact through consistent, standardised and evidence-based educational practices in prison rehabilitation programs.