This study purposed to determine the significance of Umayabashi Hospital’s so labeled “open door system” for the treatment of psychiatric patients. To accomplish this objective, it examined the relationship between the guiding principles of Dr. Maeda, the hospital’s director, and specific practices pertaining to work and entertainment. The study investigated the period from hospital’s establishment until its relocation in 1935. The founding of Umayabashi Hospital liberated psychiatric patients from confinement in so-called “cages”. Instead, they received treatment in an environment that offered both work and entertainment based on an open-door system. Psychiatric hospitals tended to be enclosed spaces in the prewar Showa period. Conversely, the doctors and nurses at Umayabashi Hospital expanded the place of work and entertainment from the wards within the hospital to the outside world. The present study found that the open care offered at Umayabashi Hospital treated psychiatric patients “a person”, and that it was based on the objectives of Dr. Maeda by nurses who shared in those objectives, patients that regarded the care as being a process toward recovery, and a community that showed an understanding of the hospital.

This study purposed to identify the values and practices of social work performed in Scotland for foster care. It also considered prospective developments in social work for foster care in Japan. An interview survey was conducted with supervising social workers in Scotland and the data were analyzed using M-GTA. The results revealed that Scottish supervising social workers display two value bases: first, the placement process should assure the rights of all children, such as to be cared for at home;second, the qualities required for foster carers should conform to the principles of foster care, such as the ability to make children feel they are loved. The results also elucidated that the interviewed supervising social workers focus on the following four aspects in their social work-related practices: (1) support in shaping the identity of the child, (2) assistance during placement to prevent breakdowns, (3) offering help to foster carers after placement, and (4) the recruitment and training of suitable foster carers for children.

This study aimed to clarify the multiple discrimination experiences of a visually impaired woman based on her life story and attempted to elucidate how she signified such encounters. Data were collected from a life story interview with a visually impaired woman and were analyzed through qualitative coding. The investigation demonstrated that she confronted multiple discriminatory experiences at every stage of her life:compulsory education, occupation, love, marriage, pregnancy, and stillbirth. The following eight elements were derived from the analysis as constituting the manifold gender and disability-related biases faced by the respondent: 1) underestimation of abilities, 2) lack of information, 3) absence of reasonable accommodation, 4) being forced to select economic independence before achieving autonomy, 5) forcible intercourse by male customers in the massage field, 6) patriarchy, 7) the woman’s role, 8) the compulsion to accept the miserable societal image of visually impaired people. These elements were intertwined throughout the respondent’s life and manifested as multiple discrimination. In addition, the respondent equated the feelings elicited from the multifaceted prejudice with riding a surfboard. This study reveals the practices leading to the individualization and subjectivation of a woman who insisted on her right to an independent life, rejected the image of victimization, and resisted the social discrimination against the visually impaired.

People diagnosed with mental illnesses confront housing-related difficulties. This study aims to investigate the vital role discharged by medical and welfare organizations and their institutional policies in addressing such issues. A survey was conducted with representatives from eight real estate companies that support people with mental illness. These small-scale local real estate companies work actively to find residences for people with mental illness as a survival strategy. They leverage their strong ties with landlords and other companies in the same industry. They also use their ability to make flexible decisions while effectively utilizing the functions of support organizations in the domain of mental health and welfare. In addition, the study confirmed the need for a multi-layered measure of surface improvement to encourage real estate companies to adopt cooperative attitudes toward the occupancy of their premises by people with mental illnesses. It is also vital to seek individual involvement from supporters and engage in the dissemination of information to enlighten the public. Such efforts will increase cooperative lenders and enhance institutional policies in the rental housing market.

The medical and welfare domains have sought to resolve the problem of fidelity guarantees in hospitals and social welfare facilities in varied ways but the practical difficulties remain unascertained. Perhaps, the life circumstances of parties regulating means of support remain unclear even though the actual situation of support related to fidelity guarantees is lucid. Object relations based on actual living conditions are deemed by this study as a necessary premise for the examination of methodologies. Thus, this study took the social welfare viewpoint of fidelity guarantees to clarify the living conditions of unaffiliated patients. Many patients facing difficulties with fidelity guarantees struggle with multi-layered low-income-related or poverty-based problems rooted in labor issues. Measures must be taken to recognize such problems as emanating from poverty, and not merely from the contractual recognition of fidelity guarantees. In fact, unaffiliated patients live in a state without rights;hence, practices involving public processes must be devised rather than seeking multifaceted collaborations with private institutions.

Social welfare corporations are required to offer appropriate public services as major actors in the organizational administration of societal wellbeing. Numerous arguments have recently questioned their value and functions. This study aims to clarify the internal policies and procedures established for the administration of the corporations engaged in developing regional social services to fulfill public interests and needs. Questionnaires were distributed to directors and managers of 2,000 social welfare corporations located across Japan and 338 responses were ultimately evaluated. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the development of local public services mandates the institution of appropriate policies and measures for the recruitment of human resources, the active participation of staff members at the planning stage, and directorial initiative. Additionally, policies and procedures encouraging staffs to challenge themselves and participate more proactively at the planning stage are also indicated to be vital for public activities in the local communities. Besides securing active human resources, directors and staff members must be constructively engaged in the establishment of internal policies and procedures undertaken to develop local public services.

This study focuses on Elizabeth Wickenden’s model to examine the social action paradigm posited in the United States in the 1950s. Wickenden is considered an influential social policy expert who worked with social workers to achieve the 1962 amendment to the Social Security Act. Wickenden’s model is important for the apprehension of social action in the 1950s but it has received scant attention in the extant literature on social action. Wickenden’s model deployed social action in an organized manner to attain political power, emphasizing long-term goals and positioning social action within the process of social change. The concept of social action targets the transformation of social structures and links social work with social policy.