This paper focuses on foster carers who are also raising their own biological children, a phenomenon that is expected to increase in Japan, and aimed to clarify how foster carers are impacted, the coping strategies employed, and the support they sought out. To achieve this end, a survey interview was conducted with nine foster carers with experience raising their biological and foster children together.

Qualitative data analysis was performed. The results showed that foster carers had “difficulties in raising children, precisely because they had their own children,” “experienced prejudice and loneliness” from other foster carers and professionals, and found “the foster care system as not ideal.” They “engaged in child care that utilized the merits of having their own child,” “took measures to stabilize foster care,” and took “action that required the help of others.” This study showed that future developments in fostering should focus on eliminating regional differences and provide support tailored to each foster parent and child.

The purpose of this study was to objectively examine the practice of child advocacy in team schools’ response to child abuse and the potential of school social workers as bearers of “formal advocacy.” Specifically, this paper conducted interviews with school social workers and conducted a qualitative analysis to clarify the actual state and challenges of child advocacy by school social workers.

The analysis resulted in three significant findings. (1) The practice of child advocacy is to restore children’s agency through the case management process. (2) To practice child advocacy in schools, it is necessary not only to provide direct support to children but also to involve teachers, staff, and parents, create change in schools, and to mold schools and parents into a team that supports children. (3) The current state is that there are time and position limits for the above activities, and that school social workers are conflicted by the school’s perception of them as an “occasional visitor” and their own feelings that they should not be too outspoken.

This study examines children’s “voices” in Residential Living Support Facilities for Mothers and Children as perceived by care workers. Discussions on supporting children in Residential Living Support Facilities for Mothers and Children have insufficiently addressed how children’s “voices” have been recognized and reflected in the support by care workers. Therefore, a survey interview was conducted with four care workers who have worked in Residential Living Support Facilities for Mothers and Children for more than ten years. Interview analysis extracted the following five concepts: between oppression and empowerment,support for empowerment,empowered voices,activities of oppression,and deprived voices. Further examination revealed the following three points. First, children deprived of their voices avoid friendly relationships. Second, care workers empower children and build friendly relationships. Third, the support of care workers can be effective in empowering children, even if the mother-child relationship is oppressive.

The purpose of this study was to focus on the workload of full-time school social workers deployed at school education sites in City A, to ascertain their actual working conditions and to obtain basic data that will lead to an evaluation of the School Social Work (SSW) Project. A time study was conducted on eight social workers in a municipality that has developed school social work services of the dispatch and base school type. The results showed that, overall, the items that accounted for a high percentage of their daily working hours (excluding breaks) were, record keeping (23.6%), meetings with teachers, consultation, and advice (face-to-face) (13.1%), and transportation (9.3%). Conversely, the items with the lowest percentages were meeting with children and their parents (face-to-face) (1.4%), case conferences (1.5%), and meeting with parents alone (face-to-face) (1.9%). Based on these findings, recommendations for building and improving the SSW Project are presented.

We conducted an interview survey of three foster or adoptive parents raising elementary school, high school, and college-aged children to investigate the behavior of foster and adopted children and the response of their parents in difficult parenting situations. Records from each interview were broken down into (1) children’s behavior, (2) children’s feelings, and (3) the response by the foster or adoptive parents, and then the KH Coder tool was used to extract words that occurred multiple times to create a co-occurrence network.

In all cases, during the early stages of the parent-child relationship, foster and adoptive parents spent time with their children and responded to their behavior with an understanding of the relevant context. Counseling services was helpful in developing an understanding of their children. Telling the children verbally how important they were helped stabilize the relationship with their children. While Japanese families typically develop a sense of psychological belonging non-verbally, expressing affection verbally may be important for building a relationship of trust with children who have experienced changes in caregivers.

The purpose of this study was to develop a “Family Support Measurement Scale based on the Child Development Support Guidelines” for family support provided at child development support centers and to examine the current state of support provision through comparisons of staff attributes such as gender, age, years of experience, and job type. The results of the survey, using 156 data samples, showed that the “Family Support Measurement Scale,” based on an inductive hypothesis derived from the factor structure obtained through exploratory factor analysis and confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis using the hypothetico-deductive method, is composed of two factors: “Collaborative Approach with Parents” and “Support Focused on the Child-Rearing Environment,” as indicated by a two-factor oblique model. The goodness of fit was supported by results showing CFI = .911 and RMSEA = .090, indicating a good fit for this model. The inter-factor correlation was r = 0.698. The relevance of this scale to family social work was also considered. In the comparison of family support attributes, it was shown that staff with 7 to 9 years of experience had a higher recognition of collaborative support with parents compared to staff with less than 3 years of experience.