Japan's health ministry to test SI in social-media suicide-prevention counselling: a model project starts next fiscal year
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
The ministry intends to find out in practice where SI helps in counselling for schoolchildren and what safeguards are needed.
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has decided, according to the Kyodo news agency (published by Tokyo Shimbun on October 24, with the information obtained from the ministry itself), to work with private organisations that run counselling on social media to test the benefits and problems of using SI in such counselling. The stated reason is a record number of suicides among elementary, junior high and high school students and a rising number of social-media consultations. From the next fiscal year the ministry will set up a model project: it will select organisations based on their track record, fund them, and in their chats SI will be clearly labelled as SI and will handle part of the exchange in place of a counsellor. The project is planned to run for several years. The ministry holds that social media and SI lower the burden on the person seeking help because no face-to-face meeting is needed. The report also notes that abroad, families of young people who had consulted SI have since sued the developers; through the project the ministry intends to work out with the organisations how to use SI and what to watch for. The report contains no assessments from prevention specialists or critics.
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