The main purpose of this research was to clarify the structure and process for developing a collaborative working relationship between social workers in child guidance center and the parents who have experienced temporary removal of their children without consent. The data were acquired through semi-structured interviews with 20 family members of 10 families who experienced the above-mentioned intervention by welfare authorities. The results, analyzed using Graser’s Grounded Theory Approach showed there were 33 concepts and 12 categories; and the core variable was “Accommodation”. The 12 categories were classified into 3 stages according to a time sequence: “Losing”, “Accommodating” and “Owning”. The results of the study emphasized the importance of social workers in dealing with 6 categories in the “Accommodating” stage in order to develop collaborative relationship with parents whose children were removed temporarily without consent; namely, these categories were “outlook”, “being supported”, “relationship with the social worker”, “setting for meetings”, “thoughts and wishes toward children”, and “expectations”.

In order to address the factors behind the issues and the issues themselves that arise in the definition of elder abuse, we conducted an integrative review of 14 articles. As a result, the unsolved issues of the definition of elder abuse can be placed into the following 7 categories: “Discussion on a consensus to sort out the differences in the recognition of elder abuse”; “Discussions on abusive acts excluded by the Elder Abuse Prevention Law”; “Discussions on introducing the concept of maltreatment with a view to abuse prevention”; “Discussions on the essence of the definition of elder abuse”; “Discussions on the concepts and classifications of elder abuse unique to Japan”; “Discussions on self-neglect”; and “Discussions on coverage of victims and perpetrators”. In addition, as background factors of these issues, 6 categories including “difficulty of the research method” were summarized. Accordingly, we concluded the following. 1. The concept of the definition should reflect exactly the situations of elder abuse. 2. The definition should be examined based on the theory that can explain the essence of the abuse and that does not rely on existing studies which view the concept of the abuse uniformly. 3. Empirical studies based on both the viewpoints of the elderly themselves and caregivers are necessary to get a more explicit definition of elder abuse.

This study aims to clarify the process of how victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) reconstruct their new life after leaving their life with batterers and to consider provision of appropriate support by professionals in this process. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 26 victims. Interview records were qualitatively analyzed using the Modified Grounded Theory Approach (M-GTA). The following results were obtained. In the process, victims experienced “a loss of many things and the feeling of carrying burdens”. They worked on three challenges: “rebuilding their life”, “drawing the line in their relationship with their batterers in real life”, and “drawing the line with batterers psychologically”. They then gradually obtained the feeling that they were “Okay (security and ease)” and they increased their feeling of being “Okay”. This process involved “working to set a boundary and recreating their daily life”. In this process, several items are mutually intertwined: “the facet of victims actively obtaining their feeling of ‘Okay’”; “the facet of supporters enabling former victims to feel ‘Okay’”; and “the facet of victims consequently increasing their feeling of being ‘Okay’”. The results show the importance of providing victims with support to attain a feeling of being “Okay” and suggest that social work in Japan needs to clearly perceive and support IPV victims who leave their life with batterers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the development of the Educational Support Project for Poor Children and its significance within welfare and educational policy, by looking into records from administrative councils, Diet deliberations and press reports. In 2004, the Advisory Committee on the Ideal Method of Carrying Out Public Assistance pointed out that independence from programs targeting families with children can be achieved by supporting children’s continuation of education in high school. After 2004, however, the educational support of poor children was given a new objective of providing venues where children feel comfortable and safe, thereby promoting sound upbringing which contributes to the development of their various abilities. Also from about 2005, lively discussions regarding the problem of child poverty took place, and eventually led to enactment of the ‘Act to Promote Measures for Alleviation of Child Poverty’. Press reports also played an important part in disseminating the awareness of the problem within society. In recent years, the Educational Support Project, whose original objective was to promote self-sufficiency of poor families with children, has expanded its objective to include providing equal opportunity in education for all children.

This study shows the structure of the emotional conflict for mothers of children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) in the process of decision making about their children’s schooling. The results are based on interviews with 5 mothers. Mothers of children with ASD were troubled when faced with the issue of the segregated and separated educational systems for disabled and non-disabled children. Their emotional conflict was colored by the characteristics of their children’s ASD. Mothers had no choice but to make decisions about their children’s school in the situation that is was impossible for the mothers to clarify the outlook for their children’s daily lives in an ordinary school, because of the uncertainty of risk factors in school life for them, such as attitudes or behaviors of teachers and classmates and tolerance of order in the class group. Based on this point, this study concludes that it is important not to hold only mothers of children with ASD responsible but to build consensus through risk-communication among stakeholders for the decision making process of their school choice.

This study aims to consider the structure of the support for the residents of the 2011 earthquake disaster-stricken area, from social workers’ perspective and methods of their work to individuals and communities. The results of interviews wih community social coordinators, working at the social welfare council of B city in A prefecture after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, were analyzed through ethnographic observations of the coordinators and the communities. We found that community social coordinators had developed distinctive methods, with different perspectives from those of other professionals. And they built a way of thinking about supports for individuals, considering their own positions and the characteristics of the communities. Methodologies which bring both the whole area and its individuals into view have been shown in several studies. But social workers, such as community social coordinators, had to reorganize those methodologies. Based on this fact, we suggest the necessity of presenting existing methodologies as easy-to-use for the people concerned.

The current study aims to analyze the relationship between cognitive appraisal of stress related to daily life and adaptation to this stress for South Korean children who have experienced the divorce of their parents. Researchers mailed surveys to 322 children (from the fourth grade in elementary school to the last year in high school) from ten South Korean cities who agreed to participate (144 valid responses). The study reviewed basic characteristics of the subjects (sex, age, and age at the time of the parental divorce), cognitive appraisal of stress in daily life, and adaptation to it. In the statistical analysis, a causal model was assumed with the subjects’ cognitive appraisal of stress in daily life as the independent variable, and adaptation as the dependent variable. The adequacy of the data was reviewed using structural equation modeling. As a result, the adequacy of the data for the causal relationship model was 0.954 for CFI and 0.039 for RMSEA. This result indicated the importance of resolving problems associated with stress related to daily life, and as such, the discussion section talks about desirable intervention directions that prioritizes children’s rights.

This paper examines the possibility of activating the sociopolitical agency of slum dwellers by focusing on the ways in which they have demanded changes to their living environments in contemporary India. The study data are based on fieldwork the author conducted in urban slum areas in Delhi. India has been promoting public‒private partnerships, especially since 2000. At the same time, it has been encouraging sociopolitical participation by slum dwellers. Previous studies focused on particular relationships that have a different purpose, such as those based in civil society, or political society, and on local leaders. The present case studies, however, showed that these relationships were connected and accumulated collectively according to the issues, such as domestic water supply problems, for example. In this situation, the slum dwellers’ community emerged and negotiated with the government through multiple relationships that they could not use individually. In this way, slum dwellers are making arrangements to solve the problems they encounter by making use of multiple relationships. In the era of postdevelopmental states, slum dwellers in India today are attempting to develop their sociopolitical agency through maintaining a diversity of relationships that have different purposes.

This study clarified the background under which the organization, Community Living St. Marys and Areas, in Ontario, Canada introduced person-centered planning and how the organization carried out the planning in the process of transition from institutions to community homes for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The results are as follows.

At first, 1) Training on person-centered planning was carried out by normalization educators and had much influence. 2) The social movement of People First begun during the 1980s was also influential.

Secondly, 1) Person-centered planning was implemented that put an emphasis on identifying who the individual is in the community based upon the strength model. 2) Values were put on building informal relationships based upon reciprocity such as who is welcoming individuals to their communities. 3) Negotiations were carried out with the Ontario provincial government to get necessary funding and this funding was individualized in the process of realizing the plan. 4) By not being based upon congregate settings such as group homes and sheltered workshops, the opportunities were guaranteed for individuals with intellectual disabilities to participate in the decisionmaking process important for their lives such as residential settings, daily activities, personal assistants and content of support.

Reverse mortgage programs were implemented as part of the Living and Welfare Fund Loan Program in 2002. However, actual practices of operation of the loan program are still unclear. This paper identifies actual conditions in the implementation of the reverse mortgage programs and problems in the system. Questionnaires were posted to all 47 prefectural councils of social welfare in Japan. There were 33 respondents. The survey results are as follows: (1) the concern was present wherein the reverse mortgage becomes uncollected debt for households requiring public assistance; (2) the concern was present wherein the reverse mortgage system depends on voluntary cooperation of the heir-at-law to avoid public auction in debt collection; (3) the concern was present wherein the well-being and housing for the bereaved family living with the debtor are possibly negatively affected; and (4) the partnership between prefectural councils of social welfare and welfare offices was insufficient.