Research Report for Cycle 2

How to Help All Children Live like "Child" -Young Carer in Japan

Starting Story

I got interested in this topic because I watched one young carer's story on YouTube. According to the video, Kazuya who is 38 year-old cared his grandmother and mother from 9 to 33 and now he is living on welfare(生活保護). I especially was shocked with the truth that he have never attended school events and dropped out of high school, even though most children suppose to experience. From his story, I thought that young carer children can't enjoy not only school life but also their future, so I decided to research this problem.

Facts about Young Carers in Japan

What is the definition of Yong Carer?

Young Carer is the child who is responsible for caring family like adults.

How many of children are Young Carers?

6th grade 1 out of 15 / 8th grade 1 out of 17 / Junior 1 out of 24

How long Young Carers spend caring their family?

30-60% children does it almost every day and most spends under 3 hours. 10 % spends over 7 hours.

Problems with Young Cares

1 Caring affects children's academic ability.

The graph on the left showed that many Young Carers tend to forget homework, be late, get bad grades and be absent from school. This can cause school refusal, obstruction of study or job hunting and weak relationship with friends. When it gets worse, they can be isolated from society in the end.

2 It is not easy to find children who are Young Carers.

NHK researched whether Young Carers had ever consulted about their problems. This indicates that 72% haven't talk to others.

Toujisya 's Voice also shows this problem.

・I didn't have the idea of relying on people.

・I didn't realize I was a young carer.

・I thought I had to deal with it myself.

➡From problem 2, it is important that people around Young Carers need to be aware.

Action for Supporting Young Carers - how to figure out the problems

Kobe City established the first consultation desk dedicated to Young Carer in Japan in 2021.

Actual case : A woman who frequently take a break off from work to care his mother and younger brother. A welfare staff noticed their problem and contacted the desk. After that, the desk increased the number of supporters to decrease her burden. Finally, she could return to work.

Saitama Shinkin Bank and Saitama Prefecture conclude an agreement to support Young Carers in 2022.

Contents

・Donating a part of commission income

・Conducting training for employees

・Promotional activities during the prefecture's campaign month

➡In Japan, actions for Young Carers have only just begun. (It is 2020 that the first municipality passed Young Carer ordinance.) So, the actual examples I found were quite few.

Future Goal - UK case

UK is the leading country on the Young Carer problems. They enacted the law that requires local government to understand the current situation of Young Carers. For example, schools understand the number of Young Carers and make communities.

Summary and Future Interests

Young Carers are tend to be less likely to ask for help on their own, so people around them should detect problems. To address the problems, Japanese government/local government/companies started to take actions like ordinances and agreements, but there are few practical supports or actual cases. Thus, I think that it is necessary to translate goals into concrete activities.

I believe that it would be effective to refer to successful examples in addressing this problem in the future. As a specific question, I would like to consider the efforts in UK and whether law is needed to promote on this problem as in the UK.

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