phlets on diet and implementing model projects to promote food education mainly at schools.

## 2 Dealing with New Mental and Physical Health Problems

Recent years have seen the emergence of new problems, including mental health problems among schoolchildren, adolescent drug abuse, communicable diseases, the “sick house syndrome,” and allergies.

In view of these problems, schools are asked to provide health management appropriate to the health issues facing individual schoolchildren in cooperation with local communities and families in order to foster a rich spirit and a sound body.

## (1) Dealing with Mental Health Problems

## 1 ) Guidance in classes

Schools have long offered guidance in physical education and health and physical education classes on mental development, the correlation between mind and body, and self-awareness in order to nurture balanced mental and physical development.

There has been a growing need in the past few years, however, to improve guidance on the mental health issues currently facing schoolchildren, including the growing seriousness of truancy, bullying, violence, and drug abuse and increased anxiety and stress among students. The present Learning Guidance Guidelines therefore provide for better guidance on coping with anxiety, worries, stress and other mental health issues, modified as necessary to suit differing stages of development among schoolchildren.

## 2 ) Improving health counseling

A rising number of students in recent years have complained of difficulties in learning, problems in getting along with friends and family, and such symptoms as psychogenic abdominal pains and anxiety stemming from these issues. Natural disasters and other major incidents/accidents have increased the need for cooperation among special education instructors, classroom teachers, school physicians, school counselors and other school staff in providing appropriate mental care to schoolchildren.

By focusing attention on the background to the physical disabilities of schoolchildren, special education instructors are in a position to notice various signals sent by children, and health counseling by special education instructors has become increasingly important. Accordingly, MEXT holds training sessions for special education instructors in an effort to improve their qualifications.

Moreover, from FY2004 liaison councils have organized in each prefecture to ensure that health counseling can be smoothly administered in cooperation with community health care organizations, medical specialists are being dispatched to schools with the collaboration of medical institutions, and model projects are being implemented to address the various health problems of schoolchildren.

The past several years have seen numerous natural disasters as well as man-made disasters. Therefore, the “Mental Care of Children during Emergencies/Disasters,” a guidance manual for teachers prepared in FY1997, was revised in August 2003 to address such problems as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that might affect the mental health of schoolchildren.

## (2) Enhancing Drug Abuse Prevention Education

Although there has been a downward trend in drug abuse among adolescents since 1996-1997, when more than 200 junior-high and high school students were referred to prosecutors on drug-related charges, the situation is still unpredictable; in 2003, more than 700 junior-high and high school students were turned over to prosecutors on charges of thinner abuse and other such offenses. The Japanese government has set up a Headquarters for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Drug Abuse headed by the prime minister himself; at the expiration of its “Five-Year Strategy to Prevent Drug Abuse” (May 1998), the Headquarters drew up a “New Five-Year Strategy to Prevent Drug Abuse” in July 2003 and measures have since been carried out government-wide.

Endeavoring to offer annual drug abuse prevention classes in all junior high and high schools and to tackle