Professor Kenji Kawano

Kenji Kawano is a Professor at the College of Comprehensive Psychology, Ritsumeikan University. His research themes are community mental health, suicide prevention, and disaster recovery from the perspectives of community psychology and cultural psychology. His group has proposed the GRIP suicide prevention program for schools and has the published book and empirical research related to it. He also serves as a trustee or director of various academic organizations in Japan. He has been the chair of the Osaka Prefecture Suicide Prevention Council since 2023.

Professor Daisuke Kawashima

Daisuke Kawashima is a Professor at the School of Psychology, Chukyo University. His research focuses on death, dying, and bereavement in the Japanese sociocultural context, including Buddhism and Japanese interpersonal relationships. He has authored or co-edited eight books, including the Narrative Workbook for Suicide Loss Survivors and Introduction to the Psychology of Death and Life. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals, including the Japanese Journal of Grief and Bereavement Research, Suicide Prevention and Crisis Intervention, and the Japanese Journal for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. He also serves as Councillor or Director of a number of Japanese academic societies. He is a member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying & Bereavement.

Dr Jo Bell (moderator)

Dr Jo Bell is a Reader in Psychology and Social Work at the University of Hull, UK. Her research integrates mental health, suicide prevention, and trauma and loss. Over recent years, Dr Bell’s focus has been on suicide (postvention and prevention) and young people’s mental health and well-being. She has published on the subject of mental health, self-harm, suicide, bereavement, and suicide-related internet use, including online suicide memorialisation and the use of social media in the aftermath of a suicide. She has researched how social media and other digital practices are used to manage grief after traumatic loss, and what we can learn from user experiences about the changing face of contemporary death, dying and bereavement. She is currently leading a doctoral research cluster program on Suicide Prevention and Social Justice within the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Research at the University of Hull.