The lockdowns measures to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 have unprecedented social & economic impacts on people's lives, affecting hardest those at the bottom of the income such as ex-prisoners. It is well known that most of the prisoners have low literacy and that upon release they face difficulties such as finding a steady job, that is a key dimension to stop re-offending. In fact, changes in economic factors can be associated with changes in crime, leading to identifiable crime ‘peaks’ during the time of crisis.Self-DESIGN is a proposal focused on assisting prisoners’ early self-reflection and preparation for release, giving them the necessary tools to gain self-awareness of their current strengths and needs at different levels. The project proposes to use design thinking processes to generate prisoner's self-awareness, empathy, creativity on mapping he/she future pathways, and doing so ability them to lead a law-abiding and self-support life.The project has two main goals, namely (1) to develop an innovative methodology that being creative, active, experiential and productive, enhances prisoners’ self-awareness of their individual’s unique re-entry needs and mapping existing resources to develop core competences for re-entry; (2) to enhance the job performance of justice practitioners that work in prison contexts, empowering them with new tools, templates and digital possibilities, increasing the level of resources available to invest in prisoners’ rehabilitation and social reintegration. A set of objectives was defined to achieve the goals: Obj1: By Sept 2021, to develop a reference framework of competencies for re-entry that includes the new re-entry barriers created by the COVID-19 pandemic, consulting at least 30 ex-prisoners, 75 prisoners and 50 justice practitioners.Obj2: By March 2022, to develop an innovative methodology for developing prisoners’ self-awareness, critical thinking and creativity on their re-entry process that focuses on using design thinking tools and templates to map, plan, monitor, evaluate and optimize the prisoners’ first paths upon release. Obj3: By Sept 2022, to deliver 5 pilots involving at least 100 prisoners, increasing prisoners’ levels of self-awareness, creativity, and motivation towards their reintegration process by 80%.Obj4: By Oct, 2022, to make available a mobile platform that supports the sustainability of the project, namely that helps professionals to replicate the methodology, to be validated through 5 workshops, involving more than 90 professionals working in the CJS. Obj5: By January 2023, to increase the number of professionals that use design thinking processes to enhance prisoners’ self-awareness and creativity on their reintegration process, downloading on average 120 times the mobile platform. Obj6: During 2-year long, under a strategic partnership, bring together interdisciplinarity and crosstalks between European justice practitioners, discussing the challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic on prisoners’ reintegration processes, organising in total 10 validation workshops and 6 multiplier events, directly involving at least 337 justice practitioners across Europe.During the Self-DESIGN lifetime, 3 Intellectual Outputs will be developed: ‘Reference framework of competencies for prisoners' re-entry aligned with the interviews’ results and including the new barriers created by the COVID-19 pandemic‘Design Thinking for Prisoners’ Reintegration – including the Methodology & a toolbox of design thinking templates targeting the individuals’ unique re-entry needs’‘Self-DESIGN mobile platform’During and upon its implementation we expect to have a positive impact on promoting prisoners’ self-awareness of their current and future individual skill needs upon release. Using a creative methodology, the project will increase prisoners’ human and social capital, namely their capacity to solve complex problems that configure their trajectories when they return to society (e.g. restructuring family ties, finding a house and/ or employment, health issues, others). Moreover, it will impact the justice practitioners, equipping them with alternative styles of teaching that use both innovative pedagogical concepts and a learner-centred approach and, therefore, are more attractive, engaging and relevant to the prisoner. It will also strengthen justice practitioners' knowledge, competencies, and experience in design thinking processes and how to use these principles to develop prisoners’ competencies for re-entry.By creating experiences and offering new knowledge, methodologies, templates and digital means that can be used when applying the prison treatment programmes, we expect an increment on both quality and results of rehabilitation programmes and staff’s job performance, motivation and satisfaction. In a long-term period, the aim is to reduce prisoners’ probability of re-offending, by increasing their probability of social inclusion upon release