Strengthening Children and Families in Community with the Cooperation of Citizens in Japan Now
While in the advent of low-birth-rate and aging society, the number of child gradually has decreased, but reversely the number of child and family problem, especially child abuse, has increased. That is the most important issue on raising child in Japan and in Japanese child welfare,too. Why does such a phenomenon occur? The key point to solve the problem is how to understand "the family and the family situation" and how to treat the child and support the changing family in the Japanese welfare system. A task for us to obtain a solution is that we should recognize the change of family, variety of family style and pattern, the change of the people's expectation to the family or their children and the less familiar intimate relationship both among the family and to the outside of it, such as neighbors and unrelated persons comparing to the former period. The another task is to reconstruct the child welfare system and social work practice in the traditional treatment in the child welfare institutions in order to adapt to the change of family. Nowadays families themselves are the prior system to support their children, even if seemed to be a troubled one in biased images before. New attempt has already begun. The base for practicing social work is recently changing from the traditional-facility type to an area-oriented and at-home type. The number of child and family support centers increase gradually in some rural cities, not only in the urban cities. There social workers practice in community with the collaboration with the other professions like medical doctors, health nurse, teachers, childcarers in nursery and have an idea to work with the cooperation of citizens who visit home and provide voluntally something of homework, child caring and etc. This is a challenge to lessen the baias against the children and families with much troubles.