In welfare facilities restraints are sometimes placed on the behavior of the users in order to prevent accidents such as users falling down, etc. On the other hand, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has published the "Guide to Zero Physical Restraint" which stipulates that physical restraint of the users is forbidden in principle, and in the guide the application of physical restraint is limited to "emergencies in which physical restraint is unavoidable in order to prevent an accident." Therefore, going forward the major issue will be how to specify in practice the requirements for physical restraints to be allowed in exceptional cases. In this paper we take as our subject matter recent judicial precedents in which liability for accidents in care facilities for the elderly and general hospitals was an issue, and we add an examination of the problems related to limitations to the legality of restraint as presented in the above guide. We conclude that "non-substitutability," one of the three requirements for restraint, is an extremely fluid and unclear concept, and we state that delegating the satisfaction of this requirement to an ex-post facto judicial review could have the unintended consequence of leading to greater use of physical restraint by workers in welfare facilities.

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The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of the indices of social interaction on the feeling that life is worth living. A questionnaire was personally delivered to elderly residents on islands of the Ryukyu Arc and later picked up by commissioned welfare volunteers. The number of people who responded to all of the items was 323 (136 males and 187 females). The feeling that life is worth living and the state of health of the elderly aged 75 or over were lower than those younger than 75. On the other hand, the evaluation of family finances of the elderly aged 75 or over was higher than that of those younger than 75 (younger elderly group). The level of social interaction of the elderly aged 75 or over was lower than that of the younger elderly group, and on getting older, females showed a faster drop in their social interaction than males did. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that for men, "Independence" and "Social curiosity" each affected the degree of the feeling that life is worth living. For women, "Independence", "Social curiosity", "Participation in society", "Feeling of safety" and "Family finances" were relevant to the degree of feeling that life is worth living.

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This article aimed to clarify the focus of discussions in the Health and Hygiene Investigation Committee (Hoken eisei chosa-kai) regarding persons with mental disorders. Through analyzing the reports of the Committee, the author divided the evolution of the debate over the Committee's measures for dealing with the mentally ill (seishinbyo-sha) into three periods. In Stagel, the construction of facilities for housing and treating mentally ill patients was seen as an urgent issue, and a national survey was conducted. In addition a legislative proposal for the Mental Hospital Law was put forward. In Stage 2, the populace was being called upon to contribute to the development of an industrial economy, and a perspective emerged that considered mental health from a preventive standpoint. In Stage 3, amid efforts for enhancing national power, the mentally ill were targeted in discussions concerning eugenics and sterilization laws. Discussions of measures for dealing with mentally ill patients, while reflecting aspects of "protection" on the one hand and "public safety" on the other, gradually tended toward "public safety" under the pressure of state objectives and in relation to other legislation, so that they evolved from "housing and treatment" to "health and prevention," and then "eugenics and sterilization."

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The purpose of this study is to identify how sense of control of one's self and circumstances change within role identity theory of symbolic interactionism. This study proposes the possibility of role identity theory as a viewpoint to understand various aspects of experiences among criminal offenders' families. In order to achieve this purpose, the following three questions are examined. The first question is: What kinds of role identities do families use in their life stories? The second question is: How does the psychosocial power of the role identities changeover time? The third question is: What kinds of psychosocial factors influence those changes? From the analysis of two cases, it was determined that against a backdrop of asymmetry of information, the offenders' families are likely to experience a decreased sense of control in most role identities immediately after the arrests. However, the families try to recover their sense of control through interactions with other people.

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In this article, the purpose is to clarify how the changes occurred in the relationships between the families of criminal offenders and the community and how has changes in the subjective perceptions of criminal's family, and to consider the appropriate system for support them. The key concept in this study is the stigma, which has the characteristics of social relationships. The research method in this article is interview survey. The interviews were conducted with 7 families and the interview data were analyzed through qualitative approach. The interview survey found that the factors that the families consider it very important when they reconstruct the relationships with the community to have the environment which can secure their privacy. This result indicates the support system for the families of criminal offenders will be enriched in two ways. First one is the social activities to let the community people know the actual condition of the families of criminal offenders, the second is to practice the community work which enables to establish the social relationships.

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In South Korea, a special law on the adoption of children, which was totally amended from the previous law, came into force in August 2012. The new law was significantly improved in terms of the protection of the rights of children, such as introduction of the requirement to obtain permission from a family court to implement an adoption, not merely filing for adoption by the parties concerned. Following the enactment of the amended law, however, arguments have continued over the fact that the number of children entrusted to organizations to act as intermediates in adoption has decreased and the abandonment of babies continues. Focusing on the registration of childbirth, the author analyzed these issues in this paper by dividing them into two issues: the right of a child to know its biological mother versus the right to privacy of a single mother, and the right of children to be brought up at home. As a result, it was seen that for women who had unintentionally become pregnant, adoption had been functioning as a social welfare system through the false filings of birth, but that overlooking this function was the greatest factor in arguments about the need to amend the special law again. The question must be asked again as to how birth registration in an unmarried state imposes a heavy burden on single mothers in South Korean society.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate levels of compassion-satisfaction (CS) and compassion-fatigue (CF), when a caregiver and children have a relationship. This study additionally suggests a way to support staff members (caregivers or social workers). Questionnaires were answered by 149 employees who were working in 14 child care facilities. Analysis of the replies showed that there was a possible negative relation in the "CS L CF H" group and that there was a tendency for both positive and negative relationships in the "CS H CF H" group (where L = low; H = high). In the "CS L CF L" group, even though there was a small tendency for the positive and negative relationships, the rate of burnout risk was high. Caregivers had positive and a negative influences on the children based on the level of CS and CF. Therefore, for support of staff members, it is necessary to train the staff and to supervise the various groups, taking into account the individual characteristics.

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The objective of this study was to clarify the workplace-related characteristics (both "organizational characteristics" and "work-related characteristics") of day care workers at nursing homes and personal care facilities based on their gender and type of employment. We conducted a questionnaire survey of 60 day care workers from nursing homes or personal care facilities. The items in the questionnaire covered their individual attributes, worksite-related characteristics ("organizational characteristics" and "work-related characteristics"), and various other factors. Analysis of variance based on two factors (the gender of the employees and the type of employment) was conducted using the "organizational characteristics" and "work-related characteristics" as dependent variables. A relationship was observed between these two factors. Moreover, for both "organizational characteristics (user-oriented care)" and "organizational characteristics (group atmosphere)", there were no differences in scores between fulltime and part-time female workers; however, the scores of part-time male workers were higher than those of full-time male workers.

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In this study, I conducted interviews with community supporters who provided support for the Indo-Chinese refugees living in a community in Kanagawa Prefecture. In order to understand the characteristics of their support, particularly its structure and relationship with other support entities. As a result of the interview analysis, the support provided by community supporters was categorized as one which aims to promote the resettlement of the Indo-Chinese refugees in their community, by applying "direct support function" and "intermediary coordination function." And their support involved the promotion and coordination of relationships with community residents functions and some assistance provided by other organizations such as NGOs or NPOs. This study results also indicated that the support provided by community supporters, can function as one social network, which is vital in enhancing multicultural social work.

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