3. Initiatives of Contracted Institutions/organizations

Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Endowed Department of Preventive Psychiatry
Tohokukai Hospital, Medical Corporation Tohokukai
Miyagi Danshukai, a Non-Profit Organization

FY2019 Bulletin Vol. 8Activities by the Endowed Department of Preventive Psychiatry in Disaster Psychiatry andPublic HealthTohoku University Graduate School of Medicine
Department of Psychoneurology/Endowed Department of Preventive Psychiatry (concurrent)
Associate Professor – Kazunori Matsumoto
The Tohoku University Department of Psychiatry has provided support and research in the wake of theGreat East Japan Earthquake, centering on the Endowed Department of Preventive Psychiatry, establishedin October 2011 by a donation from Miyagi Prefecture. The main members active in FY 2019 (Heisei
31/Reiwa 1), the final year of our operation, were Usukura, Chiba, and Kunii from the Endowed Department,
Matsumoto from the Department of Psychoneurology, and Sakuma and Ueda from the Department of Hospital Psychiatry. Most of our activities have been carried out in cooperation with the MDMHCC. Severalof us have worked as part-time employees of the MDMHCC.
To assist supporters working locally, we continued to support two social welfare councils (in Onagawaand Shichigahama) in the prefecture in FY 2019. In FY 2019, our final year of operation, we attended ouractivities cognizant of our support's approaching end. We also examined what type of support may be required after FY 2020 in cooperation with the MDMHCC.
In Miyagi Prefecture, a disaster area, we planned a workshop to provide supporters with more advanced
expertise in trauma-related knowledge and support. On September 6, 2019, a child's PTSD assessment
training was conducted with Professor Tomomi Kameoka of the Hyogo Disaster Mental Health Care Centeras lecturer. Furthermore, on September 7 and 8, in addition to Dr. Kameoka, Dr. Junko Yagi (Iwate Children's Care Center) and Dr. Yoko Arai (Victim Support Metropolitan Center) served as instructors for an
introductory training course in TF-CBT, a representative form of PTSD treatment for children. Many participants, mainly experts on children in Miyagi Prefecture, enthusiastically learned about childhood trauma.
Additionally, on January 16 and 17, 2020, we invited Dr. Yoshiharu Kin (Director of the National Centerof Neurology and Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health) and his group to lecture and hold a workshop on
complex PTSD (C-PTSD).
To disseminate the cognitive-behavioral approach, we held two “Exercise Training for the Mind andHeart” for general supporters, one of which was held in Ishinomaki. For specialists who want to learn more
about cognitive-behavioral approaches, we hosted four “psychological support skill-up courses,” two ofwhich invited Professor Yutaka Ono as a lecturer. Further, we invited Professor Hiroaki Kumano of WasedaUniversity to lecture on mindfulness and invited Professor Yoshihiro Kanai of Tohoku Gakuin University
to lecture on social anxiety.
On August 1, 2019, 16 symposiasts and moderators from inside and outside the prefecture were invited
to a symposium on mental health support during the Great East Japan Earthquake reconstruction period,and 126 people from inside and outside the prefecture participated. Moreover, on August 2, we welcomed
Director Yusuke Yatabe from the Kumamoto Disaster Mental Health Care Center to hold a training workshop on long-term mental health during disaster reconstruction titled “Miyagi/Sendai and Kumamoto now
and in the future.” A total of 30 affiliated persons from within the prefecture participated.
Activities to strengthen cooperation between mental health care and schools continued to develop mental health countermeasures for young people. For high school teachers in Miyagi, we held multiple workshops to improve the supervision of dealing with students, knowledge and coping with mental illness, andcommunication skills among students, parents, and teachers. Additionally, a “training session for cooperation between schools and psychiatric care” was held with the aim of improving knowledge and skills related
to the mental health of school counselors and teachers.
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As for activities related to research, in collaboration with NEC Solution Innovators, we completed thedevelopment of a program to support the health promotion of residents, a cognitive-behavioral therapy
approach utilizing information and communication technology, and summarized the results of that program.
Further, we summarized the data and wrote papers about the “Exercise for the Heart and Mind” and SPR(Skills for Psychological Recovery) intervention research that we conducted thus far. As a project under
the umbrella of the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) “Research on mental
health development and growth support for children and adolescents” (Principal investigator: Masafumi
Mizuno), we conducted a case study of examples of good school-mental health and welfare cooperation:
we collected acceptable practices in Miyagi Prefecture, summarized efforts in other regions in Japan, andcooperated in creating a support manual. Additionally, we published a paper in the Journal of Affective
Disorders, which longitudinally investigated depression and PTSD symptoms of people working in disaster-stricken areas in Miyagi Prefecture and summarized the course and trajectory patterns of their symptoms(Sakuma et al., 2020).
In FY 2019, at the local governments' request in Miyagi Prefecture and the Miyagi Disaster Mental
Health Care Center, we dispatched instructors to training sessions and workshops. We served as instructors
for workshops related to suicide countermeasures projects and workplace mental health in Miyagi Prefecture. In addition to this, at academic societies and various symposiums, we disseminated information. We
raised public awareness inside and outside Miyagi Prefecture through activities such as reporting on thecurrent state of mental health-related to disasters and survey results. Moreover, we continued to support
research initiatives by cooperating with the Miyagi Disaster Mental Health Care Center's ethics committee
and collaborated with the Miyagi Mind Care Forum hosted by the Center.
The Endowed Department of Preventive Psychiatry activities will come to a close at the end of FY
2019. It has been eight and a half years since the fall of 2012, and I would like to take this opportunity tothank the many people who have cooperated so far. In particular, we worked closely with the Miyagi Disaster Mental Health Care Center, which served as a bridge for support between local stakeholders in Miyagi
Prefecture and us. We would also like to thank the many staff members of the Tohoku University Department of Psychiatry for their cooperation.
This department has continuously aimed to expand community mental health in Miyagi Prefecture anddevelop preventive psychiatry, assist local supporters, disseminate cognitive-behavioral approaches, provide support for mental trauma, strengthen collaborations with mental health care and schools, offer continued comprehensive support, education, and research activities such as raising public awareness of disaster psychiatry, suicide countermeasures, and mental health measures in the workplace. We sincerely hopethat our work will help develop community psychiatry in many areas, including Miyagi.

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