The Role of Welfare Commissioners on the Provision System of Local Life Support

:Focusing on the Changes during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

In Japan, measures are underway to realise “Community Symbiotic Society” or “Dynamic Engagement of All Citizens Society”. Since 2000, local governments have taken the initiative in promoting life support measures. As a result, the personal support service called “Accompanied Support” and the comprehensive consultation service for local life support are being established.

This paper focuses on the role of these services in connecting counsellors to consultation desks and support providers. In addition to the problems of social isolation and hikikomori, there is a problem of the increasing number of people who may have lost strong ties with their families due to being a single and to living in a single-person household. Welfare commissioners, whose activities are centred on face-to-face outreach, have been forced to suspend their activities due to the COVID-19 outbreak and required to urgently review their activities. Based on the results of interviews with welfare commissioners, it suggests that regional differences in the attempts to utilize local resources and the regional characteristics including resources originally available are related to the success of social inclusion. It became clear that the core of the activity was face-to-face outreach, and concrete suggestions were obtained for the fact-finding of previous research.