Introduction of Non profit organization OVA. We provide online counseling for suicide prevention. Remove any barriers to accessing needed support. Build a flat society where anyone can access to needed support.

1. Introduction of
Non profit Organization
OVA
July 2019

2. About OVA
Mission
Pursuit of a world with concern to others’ pain and suffer.
Vision
Remove any barriers to accessing needed support.
Build a flat society where anyone can access to needed support.
What we do
Provide support to whom in need utilizing ICT.
Our first priority is in the field of Suicide prevention.

3. Overview
Name Certificated Non-profit Organization OVA
Certificated July 18 2014. Tokyo Prefecture
Non-profit Organization based on
Act on Promotion of Specified Non-profit Activities
Representative Jiro Ito
Members 9 (3 office members, 6 counselors)
Scale 35m.Yen/year ≒ 350,000 USD/year

4. Overview of Youth Suicide in Japan

5. 50% of 20th cause of death is suicide
Age 1st 2nd 3rd
10-14 Cancer（22.8％） Suicide(18.9％） Accident（15.7％）
15-19 Suicide（36.6％） Accident（23.6％） Cancer（12.0％）
20-24 Suicide（50.1％） Accident（17.4％） Cancer（8.4％）
25-29 Suicide（47.2％） Accident（12.3％） Cancer（11.5％）
30-34 Suicide（39.4％） Cancer（18.4％） Accident（10.0％）
35-39 Suicide（29.1％） Cancer（23.8％） Heart disease（9.5％）
40-44 Cancer（29.2％） Suicide（20.3％） Heart disease（11.7％）
45-49 Cancer（33,4％） Suicide（14.5％） Heart disease（12.9％）
50-54 Cancer（39,4％） Heart disease（12.9％） Suicide（10.2％）
55-59 Cancer（45.7％） Heart disease（11.9％） Cerebrovascular disease（7.6％）
60-64 Cancer（48.5％） Heart disease（12.3％） Cerebrovascular disease（7.0％）
厚生労働省「自殺対策白書（ 2017年度版）」より作成

6. Suicide death rate of 15-34 years old
in Developed 7 nations (per 100,000people)
内閣府「自殺対策白書（ 2015年度版）」より作成

7. Suicide Prevention in Japan
Ministry of Health, Labor and
Welfare
Prefectures
Program operators such as Non
profits
Cities
Basic Law on Suicide
Countermeasures
Suicide prevention plans
or
Health promotion plans
of local govetnments
Emergency reinforcement fund Base laws
The General Principles of
Suicide Prevention Policy

8. Our work
Internet gatekeeping

9. Using Google to screen suicide high risked

10. People googling “want to die” “how to suicide”
130,000-240,000/month google searches
of “want to die” in Japan
Studies show that searching about suicide
has relation with risk of suicide.
We can assume that people with suicidal
thoughts search about means of suicide,
and actually die of suicide.
● Suicide rate and search volume of
suicide related words have timeline
relations.（Yang.et
al,2011;McCarthy,2009）
● History of suicide attempts and
history of suicide related search
have relations.（Sueki,2011）
● Around 60% of suicide website
users have 1 or more attempts of
suicide. (Sueki et al,2012)

11. How Online Gatekeeping works

12. How Online Gatekeeping works
help
Subject: I want to die
I want to die
To you thinking
about suicide
I have no choice but to
die
I am a burden to
people around me
I’m alone. I have no
place to go
If you have thoughts
like this.
want to die
To you wanting to die
Other keywords: I want to
disappear

13. Communication means
Email, chat, phone, and real

14. How we support the consulter
Basic policy
● Connecting consulters with no connection to social resources such as
hospitals.
● Basically respond within 24 hours and follow up.
● Consultants are clinical psychologist or psychiatric social workers.
Requires clinical experiences and online counseling training.
Our steps
1. Empower consulter to take help seeking actions.
2. Assess the condition and environment of the consulter.
3. Lower psychological and physical cost to access real aid.
4. Urge help seeking actions in real based on 1-3.

15. Achievements
July 2013-Dec 2017
About 600 users
Suicide preventing change in 30-40% of
users.
Apr 2018-Mar 2019
283 users
Suicide preventing change in 30-40% of
users.
Definition of Achievement: Rate of those who had positive suicide preventing change as
below.
Had change in any of 3 points below.
● Emotional change: Could see positive emotional change.
● Help seeking action: Connected to new social resource.
● Help seeking attitude:Could see intention of going/reserving real aid.

16. Internet Gatekeeping has Enabled
1. Effective access to individuals at high
suicide risk using ICT.
2. Connect to real social support via
online communication.
3. Text-based counseling and social work.

17. We also do
Online counseling trainings
“Crisis intervention training -How to
take care of consulter saying “I want
to die”-”
Providing the training to more than
400 professions every year.
Consultation for local
administrations
Supporting local administrations to
build suicide prevention plans.
● Tokyo pref.
● Yokohama city
● 5 other cities in Tokyo

18. Expanding to other fields
Our model can be used in other fields.
We work with other organizations to achieve our Vision.
● Sexual assault victims support
Using GoogleAds to provide support information to the victims.
● Child abuse prevention
Using GoogleAds to provide support information to whom having difficulties in
parenting.
● Human trafficking victim support (e.g. revenge porns, forced sex works)
Using GoogleAds and TwitterAds to connect to counseling.
Designing websites to urge emails or chats to counselors.

19. How we manage (FY2018)
Revenue 35m. yen
Private foundations 40%
Public funding 25%
Public consignments 15%
Program revenue 15%
(e.g. training, research)
Donations 5%
Expenditure 30m. yen
Personnel expenses 70%
Other program costs 30%
Management costs <1%

20. Our Values
Utilizing Technology
Contributing to the Ecosystem
Visionary management
Pursuit for Innovation
Contributing to Academism