Abstract:

Recent years have been specific for the Czech school system in many ways and have brought new challenges not only in the field of prevention. One of them is distance education. Therefore, our project dealt with differences in the provision of risky behavior prevention in lower secondary schools before and after the covid-19 pandemic from the perspective of school prevention methodologists. The research was mixed, the data were collected through a representative questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews and supplement previous research reflecting on the topic during the covid-19 pandemic.

The aim of the project:
The main aim of the research was to find out what the differences in the provision of prevention in the pre- and post-pandemic period were from the perspective of school prevention methodologists in primary schools. The partial aim was also to describe what challenges they had to face during this period and what current issues they are addressing.

The problem and the sub problems:
Until recently, the issue of the functioning of school counsellors has often been neglected in research. Although school counseling has a long history in our system, it is still not properly grounded in theory and has received relatively little research attention. The actual counselling services in the school are provided by a team of several people. Usually this is an educational counsellor, a school prevention methodologist, or a school psychologist/special educator.

Methodology and analysis techniques:
Data collection was carried out using the following methods. The first part of the research from last year used a self-administered questionnaire, which was adapted from Gabrhelik and Lukavská (2020). The second part of the research was carried out using semi-structured interviews. Both parts also worked with a socio-demographic questionnaire.

Results and suggestions:
During the covid-19 pandemic, it became apparent that prevention activities were largely (65% ) not implemented at all or very sporadically. According to the school prevention methodologists, this could be due to the fact that in most schools the regular curriculum was not followed, teachers struggled with pupils not being very active in lessons and, in addition, the range of programmes to implement prevention was very limited. According to them, the fact that the methodologists themselves had to teach classically and felt fatigue in combining family care, their work and the role of school prevention methodologist, all in a non-typical environment outside school, also proved crucial. Almost everyone agrees that the pandemic brought about an enormous 'boom' in mental health problems among pupils that continues to this day because of the lack of access to psychological care.

References:
[1] Čech, T. (2011). Škola a její preventivně-výchovná strategie jako předpoklad rozvoje kompetencí dětí. Prevence 8 (7), pp. 4-7.
[2] Krajňáková, M. & Čech, T. (2022). Development of risky behavior of pupils and its prevention at Czech primary schools during the covid-19 pandemics and distance learning. IATED 2022, pp. 991-995.
[3] Miovský, M. (2015). Prevence rizikového chování ve školství I. Praha: Univerzita Karlova v Praze.
[4] Stříteská, M., Čech, T. a Hradilová, J. (2023). The Transformation of Parent-Child Leisure Time in Primary School During the COVID-19 Pandemic. ICLEL23, Coimbra.

Keywords:

school prevention methodologist, risky behavior prevention, impact of COVID-19, school counselling.