On 16 June 2021, the HELP course on Radicalisation Prevention was launched for a group of 45 probation officers in the Czech Republic. The online launch event, organised within the framework of the EU-CoE HELP Radicalisation prevention, Judicial response to terrorism and International cooperation in criminal matters (RP-TERR-ICCM), was hosted by the Czech Probation and Mediation Service.

Participants were welcomed by Ms. Andrea Matousková -Director General, Czech Probation & Mediation Service- and Eva Pastrana -Head of the Council of Europe (CoE) HELP Unit.

Eva Massa, Project coordinator, provided an overview of the CoE HELP Programme, the project and the course on Radicalisation Prevention.

Participants benefited from the expertise of Ms. Barbora Vegrichtová, expert on Radicalisation Prevention, who provided a thorough presentation on current trend and challenges in this area, including an analysis of radicalisation in prisons, radicalisation in the context of the COVID crisis and information on the Security Research and Education Project.

The launch was also an opportunity to meet the course Tutor, Mr Martin Lýsek, who gave a detailed description of the course format, content, materials, timeline and assessment. During the session, participants could also interact with each other and with the tutor, who encouraged them to talk about their individual experience and expectations on the course. Mr Lýsek will guide them throughout the online course, which has been translated into Czech and adapted to the Czech probation context.

Although this national course version targets a selected group, the HELP online course on Radicalisation Prevention is available in 7 languages on the HELP e-learning platform, together with other HELP courses related to the project, namely: International Cooperation in Criminal Matters, Gathering and Use of Evidence in Counter-terrorism cases and Managing Foreign National Prisoners.