About Us

Mission

NichiBei Care is a nonprofit organization to promote the mental health of those who have ties to Japan, whether ancestral, geographical, marital, or other, regardless of their ethnicity and nationality.

Objectives

1. We provide disaster relief for the survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake.

2. We provide education, training, consultations and direct services.

3. We serve as an information source for California and beyond for mental health issues concerning those who has ties to Japan.

4. We offer networking opportunities for our members and those interested to promote collegial support to achieve the mission of our organization.

Who We Are

NichiBei Care is a nonprofit organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Our members consist of professionals in mental health and its related fields. NichiBei means Japan (nichi) and the United States (bei) in the Japanese language. The way we write NichiBei, the two words together, signifies our unity.

Our History

On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake and its subsequent disasters became worldwide news immediately after the devastation started. Many of us in the United States, who later created and joined NichiBei Care, were riveted to news media, cell phones and the Internet to learn what was happening, to know if our friends and relatives were safe and if we could do anything right away. We reached out to friends and loved ones, anxious about the disaster’s effects and hoping for important and necessary relief efforts.

Our founding members, Reiko Homma True, Satsuki Ina and Katsuyo Howard, talked with each other within days after the devastation. As trans-national and intercultural psychotherapists and educators, they wanted to assist in the relief efforts already underway. They realized that their skills as therapists, educators and community organizers were the right match for many of the ongoing needs experienced by the survivors of this complex and far-reaching disaster. The first meeting of what became NichiBei Care also included Aya Kasai, Mio Yamashita, Chiaki Sasaki and Nahoko Nishizawa at a cafe in Berkeley, California. They reached out to their colleagues both in the United States and in Japan, andNichiBei Care was formed, with nearly 50 members from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

During the first year of NichiBei Care’s development, members traveled to Japan and volunteered their efforts in counseling, education, community networking and sometimes just cleaning up and assisting in relocation efforts. Our members collaborated with various organizations and individuals to deliver its services to those who were affected by the disasters.

Since then, NichiBei Care has grown in its membership and the range of services that we provide. Please see What We Do for more specifics about past and current NichiBei Care activities.

Officers

President Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Ed.D.

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu teaches in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and affiliated faculty in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. He is also faculty at Fielding Graduate University. He received a doctorate in psychology from Harvard University and was professor in the International Center and Graduate School of Education at The University of Tokyo. He is the author of numerous books in English and Japanese as well as a writer for Psychology Today.

Vice President Reiko Homma True, Ph.D.

Reiko Homma True is a clinical psychologist and is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Alliant International University in San Francisco. She served as the Deputy Director of Public Health in San Francisco, overseeing San Francisco mental health, substance abuse, and forensic medical-psychiatric services. During her tenure, she pioneered development of culturally appropriate mental health and substance abuse treatment services in San Francisco. When San Francisco area was hit by the Loma Prieta Earthquake, she organized disaster mental health assistance for the residents of San Francisco. Immediately after the Kansai-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, she went to Japan to provide mental health assistance to disaster victims. She went there as a visiting Fulbright scholar at Kobe University Medical School and trained many mental health professionals on disaster mental health assistance for 6 months. She also collaborated with Japanese Community and Cultural Center of Northern California (JCCCNC) in San Francisco to organize and provide mental health disaster assistance training in San Francisco for Japanese disaster workers. After the 2011 Tohoku Region Disaster, she went to the disaster area to do assistance work and again organized mental health disaster training in San Francisco to workers selected from Tohoku Region in September, 2011. She continues to provide support and consult with the on-going assistance effort in the Tohoku Region.

Officer George Kitahara Kich, Ph.D.

George Kitahara Kich is a Licensed Psychologist and Litigation Consultant at George Kich Consulting. He consults to attorneys on jury decision-‐making on court cases, as well as teaches graduate counseling students at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Born in Japan after WWII to a Japanese mother and an American father of European heritage, he came to the US as a young child. His doctoral research on mixed-‐race identity led to clinical, academic and community work to foster multicultural competence in all aspects of society. Having traveled to the Tohoku region of Japan after the disaster, he is actively involved in the work of NichiBei Care Network in developing culturally adaptive and effective treatments and trainings to foster individual, family and community resilience in the face of such traumatic events.

CEO & Secretary Nobuko Noni Hattori, Ph.D.

Dr. Hattori, a native of Japan, is a Licensed Psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. She specializes in helping people with stress, anxiety and trauma related challenges. She is a certified facilitator for Trauma Resource Institute (TRI). A nonprofit organization, TRI provides education internationally on the impact of trauma and teaches biological and skill-based self-care for a balanced mind and body in disaster-struck communities. Dr. Hattori is also a trained member of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). She was the founder and president of Japanese Friendship Connection at California State University, Sacramento, and a former president of Japanese Mental Health Network, San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to pursuing psychology, she worked for Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, Japan. She is a mother of two children.

Treasurer and Operation Manager Motoko Katayama, LMFT, CPA

She works as a psychotherapist and financial consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was born and raised in Japan. Motoko has worked as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for over two decades.