2018 Volume 15 Pages 189-215
In Japan, Regional Youth Support Stations （RYSS） are the public youth support
institutions for the youth who needs support with various difficulties. However,
the project of RYSS has been influenced by the policy evaluation, and
aiming more clearly to ensure that the youth obtain stable employment since
2015.
The purpose of this study is to consider the significance of today’s RYSS by
clarifying the support staffs’ view on the transitional stages of the project requiring
youth to obtain stable employment.
The interviews with the support staffs clarify that they have internalized the
view emphasizing the agencies of visitors, eliminating the asymmetry of the positions
with them. Further, this view was derived from several factors consisting
of institutional aspects of the project and subjective aspects of the support staffs
themselves. Additionally, results show that by utilizing this view, support staff
can eliminate the “conflicts” arising from the evaluation criteria of the project,
and search for “self-image” and “self-understanding” based on feelings of
self-affirmation of the visitors with them.
Based on these results, it is confirmed that the support of RYSS created by
this view can be a social resource for the youth who haven’t attained feelings of
security toward themselves while having various backgrounds and have failed
to be secure of their own agencies in their social lives in order to nurture their
own agencies and realize social independence.
In addition, this study highlights the fact that the necessity and the signifi
cance of restoring feelings of self-affirmation of the youth will be strongly emphasized
even on the transitional stages of the project where the necessity of
linking to stable employment will increase. Therefore, this study suggests that
the process of acquiring feelings of self-affirmation by themselves will be an important
perspective to be found during the “effective implementation of the
project”.
