Abstract
Through the "system of care provided by couple in small units" (later referred to as "couple's system") and the "system of care provided by shift-workers" (later referred to as the "shift-workers' system"), Children's Self-Reliance Support Facilities have ensured provision of familial upbringing and small-scale care. The objective of this study is to reveal the characteristics of this care system by comparing empirical data about the content of care, the amount of time spend to care and the burden of caregivers. A time-motion study was conducted in two Children's Self-Reliance Support Facilities. Results show that the number of children with emotional or behavioral disorder is relatively high in the couple's system and that the time spent in providing daily care is particularly long. Besides, in the couple's system, the total time spent was longer than in a shift-workers' system but the burden of caregivers was actually lower. The couple's system is already hard to manage and needs to be replaced. However, further research is needed to do so and to find a better way to manage human resources in the shift-workers' system.
