The significance and methods of the rights-based approach to support for children

―From the perspective of contemporary issues in the needs-based approach―

Abstract

　To whom, and on what basis, should support for children and child-rearing be given? This question has been explored in social welfare research on the expected beneficiaries of welfare, giving rise to diverse models of how that support should be provided, including problems-based, needs-based, and rights-based approaches. The purpose of this study is to proceed from that past research and accomplish two aims: demonstrate the superiority of support for children that is grounded in the rights-based approach, and to propose a mechanism for initiating activities for providing such support. This process begins with an examination of the “Angel Plan” launched by the Japanese government in 1994, which promoted the nationwide implementation of child-rearing support services founded on the needs-based approach. This initiative’s narrow focus on that approach was seen by some experts as endangering support that targets services at the problems of users, that is, service-oriented support. What sort of perspective, then, is necessary for providing user-focused support founded on the best interests of the child?

　One path toward answering that question is to refer to the welfare theories of Shigeo Okamura, whose Okamura Theory remains influential today. Okamura constructed a community-based model for defining welfare beneficiaries, and, in his later years sought to explain the inevitability of this model through human rights concepts. Using the framework proposed by Okumura, this study highlights the elements of an approach founded on children’s rights, that is, one that focuses on the best interests of the child. While Japan’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994 provided a basis for applying human rights concepts to support for children, it is hard to say that community-based support is in fact being provided in this country. Referring to Freud’s theory of the psychic apparatus, this study proposes, as a sufficient condition for initiating support activities grounded in the children’s rights-based approach, a mechanism for positioning value within the providers of support for children.