The Czech Republic Annual Report 2010 Drug ... - Drogy-info.cz

partly also by regional public health authorities. The National Institute of Public Health implemented a number of
activities in this area in 2010. The local health promotion offices in the regions of the Czech Republic implemented a
number of intervention activities, including lectures, talks, and the distribution of health educational. The National
Institute of Public Health also coordinated the Health Promoting Schools programme and organised accredited
training programmes for education professionals working in kindergartens and basic and secondary schools –
including one entitled How (Not) To Become a Junkie, a course designed to provide an overview of the methodology
of this interactive game for children.
As regards the regional public health authorities, the scope of their activities and focus of health policy and health
promotion varies across the different regions. In general, however, the regional public health authorities in some
regions also contributed to primary drug prevention in 2010, delivering lectures, talks, collaborating – to a varying
extent – with regional drug coordinators, participating in regional drug policy working groups or commissions, etc.
3.2 Universal Prevention
The Minimum Prevention Programme is the fundamental strategy of risk behaviour prevention in schools and
educational facilities, drawn up by the school prevention worker in collaboration with the school management and
other education professionals. The Minimum Prevention Programme is subject to checks by the Czech Schools
Inspectorate. The most frequently reported shortcomings of the school minimum prevention programmes in 2010, as
in the previous years, included a shortage of funds to implement prevention activities, low levels of support for the
school prevention workers from the school management, and the perfunctory nature and fragmented structure of the
minimum prevention programmes. Schools can implement prevention activities on their own or in cooperation with
external entities (such as NGOs or the Police of the Czech Republic).
A number of major prevention programmes of national importance were under way in 2010.
The implementation of the international Unplugged prevention programme (part of the EU-Dap 2 project) entered its
final phase in the Czech Republic. The programme is aimed at preventing the use of addictive substances (alcohol,
tobacco, and illicit drugs) by pupils in the 6th grade, i.e. children aged 12–14. The research project is being
implemented in 70 schools (an experimental group of 966 pupils from 37 schools; a control group of 888 pupils from
33 schools). The sixth and final round of data collection was carried out in June 2010 – for more information see the
2009 Annual Report. In this project, another 46 education professionals were trained in the Olomouc, Ústí nad
Labem, and Brno regions in 2010. The dissemination of the methodology was coordinated by the Centre for
Addictology in cooperation with regional institutions. 2010 also saw the establishment of a new team of certified
trainers who will participate in disseminating the methodology for the Unplugged prevention programme in other
parts of the Czech Republic. A total of 120 people (mostly education professionals) were trained in the methodology
of the Unplugged programme between 2006 and the end of 2010. Evaluation two years after the completion of the
programme performed on a sample of pupils who enrolled in the Unplugged programme, compared with the control
group (a total of 1,761 students, average age 14.1, the proportion of boys being 51.5%) showed that students
enrolled in the programme exhibit statistically significantly lower rates of smoking, frequent smoking, frequent
inebriation, frequent cannabis use, and the use of any drug. A borderline effect was found for daily smoking. The
authors conclude that Unplugged is an effective prevention programme for elementary schools and recommend it to
be applied nationwide (Gabrhelik et al. 2011).
Another research project is a longitudinal study implemented by the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Medicine
at Masaryk University in Brno, focusing on the primary prevention of smoking and health promotion among the target
group of children aged 7–11. The output of the project in 2010 consists of five manuals for the educational
programme Non-Smoking Is Normal for pupils in the first to fifth years of elementary schools, including a video/DVD
and a health mascot. The programme is unique in that the intervention targets children of early school age (6 to 11).
The programme has a positive influence mainly on the cognitive components of personality (Hrubá and Žaloudíková,
2011).
In 2010 the Centre for Addictology participated in an international study, Empowering Families: Increasing family
skills to work towards preventing alcohol use and drug-related problems 41 . The project aims to map the potential
preventive effects of the family in reducing undesirable forms of addictive behaviour in children and adolescents and
the involvement of entire families in prevention. The key component of the study is a questionnaire survey among
children in the school class and their parents that focuses on risk and protective factors in the family.
3.3 Selective prevention
Selective prevention programmes are focused on vulnerable groups of the population showing a higher risk of
addictive substance use. From a long-term perspective, the use of addictive substances among children and
adolescents from ethnic minorities in the Czech Republic is a serious problem which has not been managed
sufficiently.
41
European Family Empowerment: Improving family skills to prevent alcohol and drug-related problems (JLS/DPIP/2008-2/112).
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