The purpose of this study was to investigate, using the time study method, the issues that need to be addressed in order for child and family support centers （here in after referred to as centers） to fulfil their role of providing comprehensive and integrated support in children and family counseling. The participants were 15 social workers and counselors working at four centers in the metropolitan area. The type of work was full-time（ including concurrent work） for 8, part-time for 3, and unanswered for 4; the occupation was social worker for 9, psychologist for 3, other for 1, and unanswered for 2; and the years of work was from less than 1 year to 11 years （unanswered for 6） . Questionnaires were distributed to each participant to record their tasks they performed on a working day. They were asked to indicate the time spent on each task. The survey period was four weeks（ 20 working days） from 18 November to 15 December 2019. The results of this study indicated that the most time-consuming tasks at the center were: 1） filling out the results of consultation/counseling, 2） participating in training/supervision, 3） consultation /counseling （including telephone consultations and visits to clients’ homes）, 4） seminars for parents, and 5） conferences. Telephone consultation/counseling lasted 15 minutes, while consultation /counseling at the centers and home visits lasted about 70 minutes on average. Of these, public health centers and public child consultation centers were the most cooperative organizations. These results suggest that developing systems to provide outreach support for parents and children, publicizing the center’s role in other consultation organizations—such as monitoring and assessment of parents and children—and promoting cooperation with schools or nursery schools are the issues in which centers play a key role in addressing through child welfare services, as comprehensive and professional consultation organizations.

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The purpose of this study was to obtain a comprehensive perspective on which factors on the part of low-birth-weight infants are related to developmental prognosis. We quantitatively examined the relationship between various factors, including birth weight, and Developmental Quotient（ DQ） of Kyoto Scale of Psychological Development 2001, which was taken by children who were discharged from Neonatal Intensive Care Unit （NICU）. The results indicated that there was no significant correlation between birth weight and the DQs. Also, hierarchical cluster analysis using the DQs showed that the children were classified into two clusters in terms of developmental prognosis. Of these clusters, the one with significantly lower values for all DQs than 100―which indicates an average child―had a higher proportion of boys, longer NICU stays and heavier discharge weights than the other cluster, which had significantly higher Cognitive and Adaptation DQ than 100. Furthermore, results from multiple regression analyses indicated the existence of factors to predict developmental prognosis after they were discharged from NICU. These results suggested that factors other than birth weight, such as relationships with parents, might also influence the developmental prognosis of children who were discharged from NICU. It also shows that birth weight might be no longer one of the major indexes of developmental prognosis of low-birth-weight infants.

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