The approach for socially vulnerable children to enhance their motivation and self-esteem

The purpose of this study is to grasp the present situation of the socially vulnerable children. A two-phase questionnaire survey was performed about motivation and self-esteem. Eighty-four night school students participated in both phases of the survey. The comparison of self-esteem scores between night school students and other school students showed that night school students have especially low motivation and self-esteem score. To enhance motivation and self-esteem of them, it is possible that the way of social work, for example, self-help group and group- work, works effectively

Welfare to Work before and after 1996 in the U.S.

1996年は、アメリカの福祉にとって近年ないほどの大きな転換期であった。クリントン大統領(当時)の公約であった「個人責任と就労機会調停法」が8月に成立し、「要扶養児童家庭扶助」(AFDC)が廃止されたのである。「要扶養児童家庭扶助」は、アメリカの社会福祉制度の中でも最大規模のものであり、現代アメリカの貧困の象徴となっていた。この改革により、アメリカの福祉は「豊かな者が貧しい者に与える福祉」から「個人の自立を支援する福祉」へと舵をきることとなった。本稿では「個人責任と就労機会調停法」を概観し、1996年以降の福祉受給者の変化を考察する。現代日本の福祉の理念である「自立支援」を精査するために、有効であると考えるからである

Analysis of the factors affecting professionalism in elderly care workers

Japanese government established a new social insurance system for taking care of the elderly in 2000.Colleges and universities started to educate professional elderly care workers both for the nursing facilities and private homes. This recognizes the importance of professionalism in elderly care workers. However, the definition is not complete,and there have been few attempts to research the subject, especially in elderly care workers in private homes. The purpose of this paper is to clarify what factors affecting the professionalism in elderly care workers in private homes. A questionnaire given to 44 seminar participants was analyzed. All of them work as group leaders in companies providingcare to the elderly in their homes. The results of this survey are the following five major factors affecting their professionalism: (1) knowledge of the needs and understanding of the elderly, (2) knowledge of elderly care laws and regulations, (3) knowledge of medical care for the elderly, (4) knowledge of accident prevention, (5) knowledge of physical and mental health promotion for the elderly. These results lead to the implication that professionalism in elderly care workers exists not only as the knowledge of daily elderly care but also as the knowledge of societal and physical issues

保育士の専門性を構成する要因の検討

Since 2001, by law, Japanese government requires child care workers to obtain licenses. This recognizes the importance of professionalism in child care workers. However, the definition is not complete, and there have been few attempts to research the subject. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to clarify what factors affect the professionalism in child care workers. A questionnaire given to 73 seminar participants who work at child care institutions was analyzed. The results of this survey are the following five major factors affection the professionalism: (1) knowledge of basic Japanese policy for child care settings, (2) knowledge of laws and regulations for child care, (3) knowledge of how to improve the welfare of children and their families, (4) knowledge of physical health and mental development of children, (5) knowledge of domestic and international theories of child care. These results lead to the implication that professionalism in child care workers exists not only as the knowledge of child care but also as the knowledge of societal issues, including laws, regulations, and policies concerning children and their families

子育て支援政策の変遷 : 支援対象者と支援方法を中心に

1990年代以降のわが国の子育て支援施策を概観し、その変遷(支援対象者、支援方法など)を考察することにより。新たな課題を提起する

Observation results by the TAMA300 detector on gravitational wave bursts from stellar-core collapses

We present data-analysis schemes and results of observations with the TAMA300 gravitational-wave detector, targeting burst signals from stellar-core collapse events. In analyses for burst gravitational waves, the detection and fake-reduction schemes are different from well-investigated ones for a chirp-wave analysis, because precise waveform templates are not available. We used an excess-power filter for the extraction of gravitational-wave candidates, and developed two methods for the reduction of fake events caused by non-stationary noises of the detector. These analysis schemes were applied to real data from the TAMA300 interferometric gravitational wave detector. As a result, fake events were reduced by a factor of about 1000 in the best cases. The resultant event candidates were interpreted from an astronomical viewpoint. We set an upper limit of 2.2x10^3 events/sec on the burst gravitational-wave event rate in our Galaxy with a confidence level of 90%. This work sets a milestone and prospects on the search for burst gravitational waves, by establishing an analysis scheme for the observation data from an interferometric gravitational wave detector