In the Meiji era, when even the idea of social welfare did not yet exist and national social security was not yet established, Ishii Juji founded Okayama Orphan Asylum. As a Christian philanthropist, he carried out relief work and education for orphans. It is no exaggeration to say that Christian and Buddhist philanthropists played a leading role in welfare during the Meiji period. It was for the sake of philanthropy and charity that they started up such activities and this is also the case with Ishii. Pursuing his vocational calling as part of the Heavenly Father's purpose for him to do, Ishii was actively engaged in relief work and education for orphans. The aim of this study is to discuss the issue of a calling, which is the driving force behind Ishii's relief work for orphans. This discussion is considered to lead to an understanding of the original meaning of welfare, in other words, the pursuit of welfare with purity of heart, not for profit or fame.

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Recently the concept of "New Public" has been increasingly accepted in Japan. "New Public," which is a decentralized sphere mainly run by citizens, is replacing "Old Public," which is dominated by the bureaucratic government. It includes social service networks based on a partnership with grass-roots citizen participation. Rethinking through the perspective of Public Philosophy, it is however realized that the idea of "New Public "lacks the concept of "Civil Public Sphere "and it is weak against the force from the government and market. After considering the condition for Community Development to be a foundation for "Civil Public Sphere "through the idea of Habermas and his followers, it is determined that an important task for Social Welfare Councils is to change themselves into independent associations. It is also important to pursue voluntarism to build "New Public. "Indeed, for the purpose of developing Community Development Plan, it is also important to collaborate in this process with two kinds of community plans belonging to both oublic and voluntary sectors.

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The purpose of this study was: 1) to identify the reason why homeless people voluntarily leave shelters to which they were once admitted, and 2) to examine the existing policies and approaches for homeless people from the view point of the homeless people themselves. Interviews were conducted with 15 people who had been living on the street and had the experience of leaving shelters of their own accord. In my interviews, the viewpoint was as follows: 1) How did a homeless person live in the street and give a deep significance to in it before entering shelters, 2) What is the purpose that a homeless person uses shelters, 3) State of life in shelters and what leads people to voluntarily leave shelters. Three viewpoints were identified to explain the reason why the homeless people left shelters, (1)adaptation to street life, (2)the incongruity with the policy of shelters, (3)the troubles and inconveniences of living in shelters. From this result, it became clear that three support policies, (1)the support with regard for street life, (2)necessity of careful assessment, (3)improvement of residential environment and sunnort method.

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The purpose of this study is to understand mothers' bereavement process following the death of a child from childhood cancer and the significance of their participation in self-help groups/support groups (abbreviated to SHG/SG hereafter). It is based on the life story told by 15 mothers who lost a child from childhood cancer and have experienced the opportunity to participate in SHG/SG. The data were analyzed using the holistic-form-analysis-method and the categorical-content-analysis-method. Six categories were discovered before participating in the group. They were 'steeped in a feeling of freedom', 'shocked', 'falling through the floor', 'not facing up to the reality', 'drifted apart', and 'changing of the family relations'. And two categories were discovered about how mothers take a step forward to group participation. They were 'silent grief and 'taking a step forward to group participation '. And four categories were discovered in mothers' experience in the exchange meeting or support group. They were 'facing up to the reality', 'removing the fixed idea', 'finding out the power to live', and 'deepened grief. Three categories were discovered in mothers' life after participating in the group. They were 'living over keeping balance', 'keeping bond with the child', and 'reorganizing the feeling'.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate how to maintain the mental health of staff members working at social welfare facilities caring for patients with mental disabilities. Our special focus was work control and work generated stress. A total of 175 staff members completed the evaluators for work stress level, work control (both method control and goal control), job dissatisfaction. Analysis of the results showed that work stress levels were affected by the weight and difficulty of the job. The results of three ways ANOVA indicated that the interaction between having control of work methodology and goals moderated job dissatisfaction. The staff member's mental health was best maintained in a work environment where control of both work methods and goal setting were in their own hands.

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This paper aims to evaluate how the national governing bodies (NGB) for table tennis and football have dealt with the issues of mainstreaming athletes with intellectual disability in the English sports policy community. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with key political actors of sport organisations. This paper discusses how English sports policies are based on the notion of sport for all and equity. In particular, four main issues in disability sports are explored. Firstly, there are different views concerning the Disability Discrimination Act between the NGBs and a disability sports organisation. Secondly, there are different opinions concerning 'mainstreaming' between those sports organisations. Thirdly, a sporting body's organisational power is influenced by its economic power. Finally, the organisational power impacts on the level of the government's intervention.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of how a person with a mental disorder has been accepting illness, handicap and self. The basic concept of this paper is "being and living together with a handicap". I conducted the life-story interview and the semi-structured interview with a convalescing case. The respondent suffered from mental disorder in adolescence, and now he has a part time job. The interview was analyzed based on three points: 1) Processing of the transformation through his life course; 2) Turning points; and 3) Supportive factors. The results suggested the following. First, "being together with a handicap" is a process that includes "hopelessness", "hopelessness together with hope" (trust of one's self future goes deeper into hopelessness), and "hope". Next, the turning points in the process brought him the opportunities for the transformation of his life style, and sense of worth. Thirdly, the factors which support the process and turning points are "Ibasyo" (the place in which she/he can relax), "working" (connecting people to society), and "hope" (derived from the reliable of a nearby person, and the word which is received from such a person, and acts to induce hooe in the handicapped person).

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The purpose of this study is to show a part of process, mainly in a change of the person herself, which a person of cerebral palsy cared for by parents realizes in undertaking independent living as a single life. I focused on a woman of cerebral palsy named Ms. A and clarified her trace by a qualitative study. And, in this article, I described a trace of Ms. A in "Fight Period with Her Mother". That was the first process of the whole process towards in independent living. In this period, a periodical dispatch to home of an attendant to whom her mother objected was Ms. A's accomplishment, by which she reversed the power relations with her mother. It was a crucial event for her to accomplish independent living later. This was enabled when her situation reached an extremity. It was brought through her interaction with her mother, a staff of institution where she went, and other disabled people of the institution inside and outside. The research also showed that the uneasiness of the time when her parents will not be able to take care of her and the search of her own identity led her later to choose independent living.

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The conventional elderly abuse research is insufficient. We carried out research with home helpers participating in training sessions as subjects in M prefecture. From the result, we grasped the characteristics of a son who repeated elderly abuse, and we propound some view points to build a support plan and skills to intervene against elderly abuse. To this end, we chategorized 8 types of elderly abuse; physical, mental, economical, sexual, social, medical and self abuse, and neglect. The characteristic of the son is as follows; 1) The agreement rate with the person who takes care and the person who repeats elderly abuse is high, 2) Elderly abuse occurrence is unrelated to the level of caring, and 3) There are 2 type characteristics of the son, "roughness" and "mental dependence". View points of support plan and intervention skill against elderly abuse are as follows; 1) Social workers have to grasp the actual conditions and progress observation of the son, 2) Social workers have to understand the income and savings of elderly persons in order to prevent economic abuse, and 3) Social workers have to intervene over the long-term to reconstruct the relationship of parent(s) and child.

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The current study aimed to clarify interpersonal relationships related to perceived job competence of care workers in nursing homes. The sample size was 400 care workers in nursing homes selected by using random sampling. The research design was a cross-section survey with mailed questionnaire. Three types of interpersonal relations were analyzed: relationships with the service users, social supports, and interpersonal relationships in worksites. Perceived job competence of care workers included achievements of tasks, competence and growth, preparations for work and problem-solving. Multiple regression analyses revealed the following results: (1) perceived job competence was positively related to positive relations with the service users, (2) achievements of tasks were related to interpersonal relationships in worksite, (3) competence and growth were related to supervisor support, coworker support, and position in worksite, and(4)preparations for work and problem-solving are related to supervisor support and length of time in job. The findings suggest that positive relationships with the service users and supportive interpersonal relationships among care workers are crucial in improving the quality of care.

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This article examines two hypotheses from a burnout model of care workers focusing on gender differences of Western Japan. My main analytical tool is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Hypothesis 1 is that the predictors of burnout are "supervisor's support", "co -worker's support", "possibility of promotion", "intention for promotion", and "years of school attendance". The result of my analysis fully verifies hypothesis 1. The burnout model fits to the data well. Hypothesis 2 is that the factors of the burnout model are common in both men's and women's groups, but the influence of each factor on burnout (β of each variable) varies in strength. The result of the simultaneous analysis of two populations shows that hypothesis 2 is also verified. These outcomes of SEM reveal that the predictors for burnout differ between men and women. For male care workers, supervisor's support doesn't have a direct effect on burnout, but intention for promotion has a buffering effect. For female care workers, only supervisor's support has a buffering effect, the other factors having no statistically significant effect. In short, it can safely be said that male care workers cope with burnout problems differently from female workers in the nursing care settings.

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The subject of social work practicum is to acquire the skills of social work in the social worker training course. The classes of this practicum are originally developed in training organizations and each teacher in charge provides his/her own content in the class. However, there is some danger of a difference in the quality of the classes, while various programs become possible. This paper aims to consider the practicum method that can be practiced in training organizations and to present some practical examples in order to attain certain levels of skill which make it possible to have direct intervention in the service user. In this case, we tried to focus on the four roles of social work and practice methods for the necessary acquisition for each role. We confirmed that learners found the skill of thinking about the programs for helping and of expressing them more interesting than the formerly valued skill of "Listen to" by self-evaluation of the learners.

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