Interactive platform for mental health support and prevention of risk behavior in the Czech Republic

Authors

1.Mrs. Renata Habinakova (⚑ Czech Republic) 1

2.Ms. Elizabeth Nováková (⚑ Czech Republic) 1

3.Prof. Michal Miovsky (⚑ Czech Republic) 1

1. Department of Addictology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University

Abstract

Interactive Platform for Mental Health Support and Risk Behaviour Prevention. (iprev.cz) is a tool to promote quality in prevention and to support prevention professionals both in schools and among external providers of prevention programmes for children and adolescents. IPREV helps to effectively build, manage, monitor and improve these programmes.

The platform consists of three main components: 1) national database of evidence-based prevention programmes for schools, 2) systemic support for the training of prevention workers and methodological support for their work and 3) component focused on quality assurance and safety in prevention including the SEPA monitoring and evaluation system and support for the certification system.

Through IPREV, our goal is to create a user-friendly environment that cultivates prevention activities in Czech schools in a way that is truly effective, economically achievable and sustainable, evidence-based, attractive to target groups, and safe at the same time. IPREV maximizes the principle of a decentralized system and emphasizes the community-based principle of prevention work.

The pilot operation of the platform has shown its importance in the domestic prevention system and infrastructure. The platform will serve as a dissemination channel for the results of projects focused on prevention and quality standards. 

The content is going to be developed with regard to the current needs of practice, the collaboration with practitioners is planned to be extended and some parts of the platform are going to be translated into English so that it can serve as a source of evidence-based information for professionals. An evaluation study of the implementation of the project activities in practice is also planned.

IPREV is operated and developed by the team of the Department of Addictology, First Faculty of Medicine and General University Hospital in Prague in cooperation with a consortium of organisations.