Abstract
For many years, Japan has left the provision of support for family members to live in the community to the families themselves and, when they become unable to stay at home, sought solutions that made use of hospitals and institutions. Since the 1980s, welfare for the elderly has been developed within the framework of community welfare, a field of social welfare, although there remain challenges. The wishes of persons with disabilities have been addressed through community welfare policies as well.
On the other hand, child welfare still depends on the families. Child poverty and bullying among children have both increased, leading to the enactment of specialized legislation. Protective measures in the field of child welfare, implemented primarily through prefectural child guidance centers, are insufficient in quantitative terms and slow in being transformed into efforts by municipalities. Nevertheless, child centers, which should be the core of community projects for children's development, have become rental spaces; many children in urban districts are on a waiting list for admission into day-care centers. This makes it impossible to expect that these local facilities will provide rehabilitative support for children in need of protection or preventive support before protection needs arise.
Community life is in crisis for children and their families with challenges in child-rearing. The survey explored ways to relieve children from suffering caused by the imposition of challenges in child welfare policies as their own responsibility, by referring to child-rearing practices by teenage parents, who are themselves children by definition but at the same time a target group for child-rearing support, as well as to challenges in providing support for them.
