Currently, Japanese society is in dire need of eff ective social support for young people who are facing difficulties. As one example of efforts undertaken to this effect, the British government implemented Connexions services from 2001. Despite the national and international attention this policy has received, the British government chose to discontinue it in 2010. Subsequently, the service in question has become the responsibility of the local government. This study will examine the background of the decision to shift the delivery of the guidance services from national to local administrations and the resultant development of the youth support services in Birmingham. This paper is based on the data collected in one of youth service centers in Birmingham in summer of 2015 as well as from the relevant literature. The success of the policies implemented in the City of Birmingham suggests a promising direction for specifi c support measures, which may be applicable also in the Japanese context.

　This article examines agreement regarding assessments of psychiatric symptoms between mental health workers and patients with schizophrenia at the community level and looks at how this agreement is related to patientsʼ social participation. We conducted a questionnaire survey among patients suffering from schizophrenia and members of their treatment teams. Patients completed questionnaires that consisted of 18 self-rated psychiatric symptoms from the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), 10 social participation items, and other related questions. Members of the treatment team also assessed 18 symptom items from BPRS regarding their patients. Results showed a relatively high agreement regarding positive and emotional symptoms, and a low agreement regarding negative symptoms. In terms of the relationship between the level of agreement and social participation, the high-agreement group showed better social participation than the low-agreement group. Results indicate that communication between workers and patients needs to be improved, with a particular focus on negative symptoms, in order to promote their social participation.

　Community sport clubs provide children with adequate opportunities to exercise, but certain problems have been observed in these clubs both in the United States and in Japan. In this paper the authors provide a report on the interviews with parents of sports club members and coaches, and discuss their finding based on the observations of various sports activities in the San Francisco area. We identified a number of interesting organizational differences, as well as noteworthy similarities, between community-based junior sports in Northern California and in Japan. We conclude by examining more in detail some of the good practices observed in the United States, which can be emulated to improve the quality of community sports in the Japanese context.

　The author introduces and analyzes two essays about lifesaving and the notion of duty of a school teacher. The texts in question discuss the case of Ms. Ono, a primary school teacher who bravely saved two drowning pupils during the class, and died in an effort to save the third one. The first text is an essay by Tsugi Takano who claims that the teacher had no other choice of action. The second one is an essay by a school inspector, Kichisaburo Sasaki, in which he suggests that Ms. Onoʼs actions were an example of how teachers were expected to behave. Following the analysis, the author goes on to discuss the pedagogical implications of using this episode as part of teaching materials.