Speaker

Presentation in English

SHIN-ICHI ISHIKAWA

DOSHISHA UNIVERSITY. JAPAN

Dr. Shin-ichi Ishikawa is a professor at the Faculty of Psychology, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. He obtained his undergraduate and MA degrees from Waseda University and his PhD from Health Sciences University of Hokkaido. He was a Fulbright scholar at Swarthmore College, 2011-2012, a visiting professor at Macquarie University, 2018-2019, and a visiting professor at Turku University, 2022-2024. He was a full-time lecturer at the Faculty of Education and Culture at the University of Miyazaki before joining Doshisha University in 2011.

His research has focused on Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, especially treatment, prevention, and psychopathology. He has received several awards, including of the Japanese Psychological Association (JPA), the Japanese Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (JABCT), and the Japanese Association of Counseling Science (JACS). He had contributed as an ACBTA supporter for 10th World Congress CBT in Seoul and an ACBTA advisors for 8th Asian CBT Congress in New Delhi. He is an executive committee member of the Asian Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Association (ACBTA), Japanese Society of Anxiety and Related Disorders (JSARD), and a former executive board member of the Japanese Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (JABCT).

From Awareness to Action: Implementing Universal Prevention Programs in Schools for Diverse Mental Health Challenges

Promoting child mental health has become an increasingly pressing global concern in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Preventive action in school is one of optimal approaches to address mental health problems in children and adolescents. The Universal Unified Prevention Program for Diverse Disorders (Up2-D2; Ishikawa et al., 2019) represents one such initiative, designed to address a range of internalizing and externalizing problems within the school context. Based on cognitive-behavioral and positive psychological approaches, Up2-D2 employs a user-centered design methodology, leveraging existing circumstances and natural contexts.

Feasibility studies have shown its efficacy, demonstrating significant reductions in mental health symptoms (Kishida et al., 2022a; Oka et al., 2019), particularly anxiety following pandemic-induced school closures (Kishida et al., 2022b). Additionally, Up2-D2 has shown promise in ameliorating depressive symptoms among at-risk children (Kishida et al., 2023), alongside improvements in child-reported self-efficacy (Oka et al., 2019). Furthermore, the establishment of training and accreditation systems within the social implementation framework for schools has facilitated broader adoption including high school for special needs education (Nakanishi et al., 2024). This presentation will discuss current research findings and practical considerations surrounding the utilization of universal prevention programs in schools.

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