Background: In addressing mental health challenges in children, identifying cognitive and behavioral skills that promote resilience is crucial. Therefore, creating a comprehensive scale for teenage children is important in revealing patterns in resilience skills development over time.

Objective: This study aimed to develop a resilience skills scale for teenage children and test the validity and reliability of this scale.

Methods: To select a group of scale items for the creation of the scale, we conducted two surveys of professionals with experience in consultation practice and collected 30 items. Next, a survey was conducted with 6,971 participants ranging from elementary to high school students using these 30 items. The survey used the Resilience Scale for Junior High School Students, Stress Reaction Scale, and Truancy Tendency Scale as construct validity. Reliability was further examined using the retest method after a three-month interval.

Results: (1) The exploratory factor analysis of the scale revealed four factors: “Calm relations with self and others” (α= .83, 8 items), referring to calmly perceive and act on your own and others' situations; “Positive Self-Awareness” α= .82, 4 items), referring to recognize positive aspects of self; “routine behavior” (α= .65, 3 items), referring to the ability to create and follow one's own routine; and “self-care” (α= .64, 2 items), referring to practice relaxation. (2) Significant positive correlations were found between the four subscales of the Resilience Skills Scale for Teenage children (RSS-TC) and all subscales of the Resilience Scale for Junior High School Students (r= .278 to .794, all p<.01). Significant negative correlations (r= －.111 to －.491, all p<.01) were found between all subscales of the Stress Reaction Scale and all subscales of the RSS-TC and weak to moderate negative correlations were found between all subscales and the Tendency toward Non-Attendance at School Scale. (3) The test-retest analysis conducted after three months indicated moderate correlation coefficients (r= .57 to .77). (4) A two-factor analysis of variance with school type (elementary, junior, and high school) and gender (boys and girls) as independent variables revealed significant interactions for all subscales.

Conclusion: These results confirmed the usefulness of the RSS-TC from 4th grade elementary school to high school students.

Background: In the field of physical education at junior high school, Budo (judo, kendo, sumo) became a compulsory subject in 2012. In recent years, the characteristics of injuries in judo classes at junior high school have been reported. However, the characteristics of injuries in judo classes at senior high school are not clear.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to clarify the characteristics of injuries in judo classes in senior high school.

Methods: Data were collected from the “Injury and accident mutual aid benefit system data”, provided by JAPAN SPORTS COUNCIL. As a method, the quantitative text analysis “KH Coder” was used to identify the factors causing injuries. The target was the data of the injury accidents in high school judo classes. The target year was set as the 2012 academic year in order to compare with junior high school students, and the latest data available at the start of this study was that of the 2016 academic year.

Results: The main results were as follows: In the 2012 academic year, there were many descriptions of injuries for Ukemi practice in all grade levels of girls and for both Ukemi practice and Katame-waza (grappling techniques) in 1st grade boys. In terms of injury location, many of the girls described the head and neck areas. In the 2016 academic year, more descriptions of Ukemi practice injuries were found in 2nd grade girls, and 1st grade boys. In terms of injury location, the head and neck regions were described more frequently by girls.

Conclusion: Injury accidents in judo classes at senior high schools were characterized by a large number of descriptions of Ukemi practice by 1st grade boys and all grade levels of girls, with girls in particular frequently describing head and neck injuries. Because of these characteristics, it is important to consider safety measures for students with limited judo experience when learning Ukemi and to take into account differences in neck muscle strength based on gender for the overall safety of judo classes.

Background: The “International Standards on Drug Use Prevention, Second updated edition” was published in 2018 by the UNODC and WHO of the United Nations. The International Standards set the stage for UN Member States to work together to prevent drug use worldwide. The second edition of the International Standards in particular provides an overview of the systematic reviews published between June 2012 and January 2018 as an update to the first edition, and the content reflects the latest scientific evidence.

Objective: The aim of this research note was to describe and examine global trends and perspectives in drug use prevention based on publication of the International Standards, in order to contribute to the future of smoking, drinking, and drug use prevention education in Japan.

Methods: An overview based on the International Standards.

Results: Some key words for understanding this publication are as follows: “drug use” regulated by three international drug control conventions, “substance use” including non-medical use of other psychoactive substances and use of cigarettes, alcohol, and volatile solvents in addition to drugs; “interventions,” “policies,” and “strategies” for drug use prevention, and the difference between “efficacy” and “effectiveness” in scientific evidence. Drug use prevention in the International Standards covers individuals from infancy to adulthood, but they have enhanced content on prevention programs with a particular focus on childhood and adolescence. The International Standards have also identified scientific evidence that has been obtained thus far and topics for the future.

Conclusion: In Japan, an important task is to develop drug use prevention programs in schools based on scientific evidence while referring to the International Standards.