In prewar Okinawa, the Japanese Government had enforced a relief system in case of disaster for the poor, named Kyumin-Ichiji-Kyujo. Usually, a prefecture office used its own system, the Kyujomai and Tokubetu-Kyoudou-Tyochiku. The former was the fund reserved from state subsidy, the latter was the fund reserved from tax. These were the nominal property of the villages, but substantially the fund came from the prefecture office. Besides these systems, there were money and corn common to the villages. These named Magiri-Kyoudou-Tyochiku were used for the relief of poverty caused by disaster. That is to say, there was the relief expended as state subsidy, and on the other hand, the prefecture office created a fund for the relief of the poor in a disaster. Villages have had funds for that purpose, and when the funds were insufficient, the prefecture office asked for more state subsidy. For poverty except that caused by disaster, the state relief system and the public relief system were not used much. Instead of these relief systems, a system of mutual aid name Moai had been commonly practiced.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss the philosophy and method of support for self-determination of persons with intellectual disabilities. I. Philosophy : The philosophy of support is directed to create a new kind of relationship between supporters and persons with intellectual disabilities : it aims neither to control their self-determination nor to allow laissez faire, and it is based upon four specific views on human beings. They are 1) autonomy and communality, 2) diversity and universality, 3) capacity and limitation, 4) doing and being. Each of these views relates to one another. II. Method : The method of support is classified into five domains : 1) recognition, 2) judgment, 3) expression, 4) implementation, 5) responsibility. Each domain is based upon the above philosophy. By this method circulatory movement occurs from 1) to 5), as well as from 5) to 1), which enables persons with intellectual disabilities to develop capacities for self-determination and growth. Among the five, the most important are 1) recognition.

View full abstract

This article aims to elucidate the helping view of the social worker nurtured through helping activities that are conducted in the mental health field and where an attitude of strong social defense has been historically prevalent. Focus has been placed on their self-definition reports. 1 ; Concerning self-definition, past social work theories point out that social workers were critical of themselves for perceiving their clients as "others". In addition, this article points out that social workers have not been able to completely separate their personal values from their professional self. 2 ; It was learned through direct interviews, social workers commit themselves at a personal level and their personal self influences their perception of their clients. From the above two points, this article aims to disprove the current static and idealistic helping theory that perceives social workers as professionals that function irrespective of their personal self. Furthermore, this article recommends the formulation of a new and realistic helping theory that recognizes the fact that social workers are indeed influenced by their personal self, which is dynamic and highly sensitive to its surrounding situation.

View full abstract

"Socialization of childcare" has three aspects ; shift of the caregiver from the parents of children to others, cooperation in providing childcare, and re-< socialization> occurs in the process of "socialization". This study examine the role family day care homes have played in the national and local childcare policies and how the family day care providers are now thinking about their work. This study is based on the analysis of discourses of family policies and interviews of family day care providers in Setagaya, Tokyo. The study points out that in the policy, family day care has primarily been regarded as housewives' work, but now also as care work itself. Family day care providers think of themselves at the same time as "experienced mothers" and as "not volunteer""care workers with skills". Now not only family day care policies, but also providers are in transition. If we don't have a drastic reform of family day care policy now, the feminization of childcare in the local community will progress further. We need further discussion on gender-neutral family day care policy and the future of the concept of "socialization of childcare".

View full abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine : 1) how the chief executive officers (CEOs) of skilled-nursing homes recognized the changes brought about by the introduction of the Long-Term Care Insurance System, and 2) how they responded to the changes. An exploratory-qualitative study was conducted based on the interviews of four CEOs of public skilled-nursing homes. The result indicated that the changes were recognized from five viewpoints : features of clients, functions of skilled-nursing homes, norm, staff-client dynamics, and revenue and personnel employment. The response to the changes were categorized into six groups : decreasing personnel costs, maintaining quality and morale of staff, fostering business mind, shrinking or expanding optional programs, conscious handling of the grievance/evaluation procedures, and protecting the norm of care from the increasing demand of cost-effectiveness. The way to respond to the changes differed according to whether the CEO intended to minimize the influence of administrative necessity on service providing activities. Professionalism was also suggested as a factor to influence the CEOs' responses. In addition, technology and organizational re-structuring appeared to serve for different purposes. The validity of these findings was severely restricted because of the small sample size and the method adopted, and tasks for future studies were discussed.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is twofold, as follows : (1) to clarify the importance of natural support of co-worker as a factor that has made an extended job retention of an intellectually disabled employee possible ; and (2) to explore better and more specific ways to realize natural support. Above all, the study is intended to ensure the importance of the "key person" of natural support. The study examined the relationship between Mr. A, who was severely intellectually disabled but was successfully employed for more than five years and his Co-worker M, who extended his (psychological and other forms of) support throughout Mr. A's tenure at a small private company. An analysis of the interview data reveals the following findings : (1) Continuation of the relationship between these two people was possible because of the interaction between "attachment" of the supporter (Co-worker M) and "competence" of the supported employee (Mr. A) ; (2) the relationship between these two people needed the supportive environments, including their employer, their families, the staff of Mr. A's facility, and governmental systems ; and (3) an extended job retention by people who are severely intellectually disabled is likely to promote their greater social independence.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the open-ended questions in order to examine the evaluation criteria used by the caregivers concerning the effect of house remodeling on the elderly. The subjects are persons over sixty years of age who have received house remodeling services. The text mining technique was used for analysis of 184 of the complete open-ended questions given by the caregivers in order to determine the effect of house remodeling on the elderly. The result of the study shows that the high-frequency component words were "care," "client," "possibility," "secureness," and "family." Cross tally was used, made up of the 86 components and the degree of caring for the elderly. Correspondence analysis yielded the following information I (1) The evaluation criteria used by the care givers were (a) the client care level, based on self-help capability and (b) the client's actual disability, or physical condition. (2) There were three reasons for house remodeling : to improve independence, to decrease the amount of necessary care, and to modify the living environment to facilitate adaptation to the disability or physical condition. These results lead to the conclusion that it is important to identify a caregiver as an assistant of house remodeling services.

View full abstract

The purpose of the present study is to examine the effectiveness and tasks of group work practice that focus on support groups for mothers of children with school refusal. These mothers are now experiencing a variety of difficult situations in the relationship among child, husband, grandparents, and school. Therefore, support groups which work to help members cope with stressful life events and revitalize members' coping abilities may be effective for these mothers. However, studies of such practices have been not carried out until now. This time, group work practice was planned for a total of 6 times (once a month, 90 minutes) , and was announced to mothers of children who attend a special class for school refusal. As a result, 13 mothers participated in the practice. To evaluate the success of the group, the worker focuses on member's satisfaction with the group experience and whether the group has met their needs. As self-report measures, after each practice, mothers were requested to write their feelings about it. As a results of the practice, all mothers wrote that they were satisfied with the group experience because they could get information from other mothers. However, there were some remaining tasks related to their needs.

View full abstract

The current study examined factors related to unmet perceived needs for activities in later life by older women. Data concerning 249 elderly women aged 60 and over were obtained from a self-administered questionnaire survey in N Ward, Osaka City. We measured perceived needs and current status of activities in later life such as social group activities, learning activities, and exercise. The results of analysis showed that the percentage of the aged who had unmet perceived needs for social group activities and learning activities were higher than those for exercise. Fisher's exact tests showed that ; (1) older women who had little information about activities were more likely to have unmet perceived needs for social group activities and learning activities ; and (2) elderly women who did not have a stronger sense of collecting information about activities were more likely to have unmet perceived needs for learning activities.

View full abstract