Community-based Service and Program Developments throughCitizen Participation: In a Case of Japan
Shinichi Murota

Introduction
Social welfare programs and services can only be developed with either
financial resources or human resources. The former one is usually the results ofredistribution of resources such as taxations or donations. The later one is often
carried by organized efforts of volunteers. Therefore, it is not only the governmentthat develops programs and services, but also private organizations and voluntaryorganizations could become a main actor in the process.
Historically, service and program developments have been the result ofso-called “rational planning” in Japan. Particularly, the bureaucrats from theMinistry of Health, Labor and Welfare played a dominant role since the 1950s1. On
the other hand, the importance of citizen participation in the planning process wasidentified by scholars in social welfare studies. For instance, Shigeo Okamura, oneof the founding fathers of community-based welfare (chiiki-fukushi) and who
introduced the idea of community organization from the U.S. to Japan, hasemphasized the importance of organizing community members in a welfareprograms (Okamura 1974: 9-10). The idea of citizen participation was, however,
only existed in theories and it has never reflected in practices until very recently.
The signs of citizen participation in service and program developments began
to be identified only in last decade. Enactment of Social Welfare Act in 2000 was anepoch making legislation that promoted the idea of community-based welfare andcitizen participation in the social welfare policy. The act states that its purpose is “todefend the rights of welfare service users and to promote chiiki-fukushi while itfacilitates the development of welfare services (title I).” This act, along with somemajor policy changes such as establishment of the national long-term care
Voluntary organizations such as settlement houses were actively involved in programand service developments since the end of the 19th century until the Second World War
begun. By the time when the War was ceased, voluntary activities for social welfare
were diminished, and the government was the only service provider under the control of
the General Headquarters (GHQ). Since then, the government has played the majorrole in service and program developments in Japan.
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insurance system, brought Japan’s social welfare to a new era- an era that can be
described by the phrase “mainstreaming of chiiki-fukushi” (Takegawa 2006).
The purpose of this paper is to identify the recent developments of service andprogram developments, which are not the results of the government’s rational planning
process but the results of public-private partnerships and citizen participation. The
study

explorestwo

approaches

ofserviceand

programdevelopments:(1)

community-based care-networks and (2) community-wide welfare planning.

Community-based Care NetworksOne approach for service and program development is through individualcases. A new service or program is developed according to the need being identified
by social workers during an intervention. These interventions are done throughcommunity-based care networks- the network composed of formal service providers
such as government agencies, social welfare councils, non-profit service providers,
hospitals,etc.

andinformal(voluntary)organizations

suchaswelfarecommissioners, local volunteer groups, etc. These community-based care networks
can be found in many localities today, and they have become an important vehicle
for service and program developments.
The service and program development process through these networks can be
split into three stages- initial contacts, liaison/networking, and program
developments.
Firstly, an intervention begins when needs are identified in a community.
Professional workers cannot beware of every single case at risks in a community.
Instead, welfare commissioners and volunteer groups organize friendly visits and/or
mutual-aid activities, and through those activities, they often identify needs in theircommunity. Once the needs are identified collectively through voluntary activities,
local volunteer groups refer cases to the professional workers when it’s necessary.
Professional workers, then, connect the individual to the existing services. At thesame time, they also provide supports for local volunteer groups such as
coordinating their activities, providing information and trainings, and developing
leaderships. The important point in the stage is that the needs are identified
collectively and there are clear rules between professional workers and local
volunteers in terms of defining responsibilities.
During the second stage, cases are shared by larger networks. The interest in
this stage is to connect the individual’s needs to existing services and activities.
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When services and programs are not coordinated within a community, an individual
has to travel from one office to the others to look for the suitable services, and it isquite common that one would give up in the midst of searching process. Service
providers and voluntary groups refer other organizations simply because there is noexisting service that would fulfill the need of the individual.
In order to avoid those fragmentations of services and activities, professional
workers hold case conferences by calling workers and volunteers from variousorganizations. At the conference, the participants try to coordinate their services
and define the responsibilities among them. Holding a conference would take someburdens off from volunteers who might have been overwhelmed by seriousness of
the issues they are involved. Those conferences are held on demands, but they may
be held regularly in order to maintain and strengthen the care networks.
Most cases often come to the end by the second stages when they are referredto the right services. However, if the needs were not met, the professional workers
would develop a new service or program, and that is considered the third stage in
the intervention. During this stage, the professional workers would mobilize thecommunity resources, both formal and informal, both monetary and non-monetary,and create a new mechanism to either fulfill the needs, to lower the risks, or toprevent from re-occurring. The crucial part in this stage is that the new services arecarried by the efforts of the care networks.
The important aspect of this new approach is that the program can be targeted
to a particular population because the purpose of the new program is to fill in thegap between existing programs and services and it is not meant to be universal.
This characteristic can be observed in the case example below.

Case example:
In Toyonaka City, Osaka, a new program, the Wanderers Rescue Network, waslaunched due to the increased number of wanderers in a community who sufferfrom dementia. The need for the new program was first identified by local residents
and volunteers. Then, social workers and volunteers, working with the police
officers, have developed a care network to share the information of lost wanderers.
Finally, the local government stepped forward to establish an Email forwarding
system in which the information of Alzheimer’s wanderers is circulated via Email tolocal residents who have registered to the system. This new program is only useful
to particular population and it can only function when enough numbers ofvolunteers register to the system. That is considered as basic characteristics of this3

approach- being targeted and flexible.

Community-wide Welfare Planning
While new services and programs can be developed from individual cases (i.e.
micro approach), they can also be developed through community-wide planning
processes (i.e. macro approach). As being mentioned above, service and program
developments were the results of rational planning of the central government in thepast. Social Welfare Act in 2000, however, has implemented fundamental changes inwelfare planning processes. It requires local governments to make an effort todevelop a community-wide welfare plan through citizen participation (title CVII).
Since the enactment of the act, approximately 60% of 1801 local governments
in Japan had either developed their own community-wide welfare plan or werescheduled to do so (MHLW 2009). Over 700 local governments had alreadydeveloped their own plan, and numbers of research studies were conducted on thoseplanning processes. One of the biggest interests of those studies is to identify ways
to incorporate citizen participation into the planning process.
The list below shows various ways to incorporate citizen participation in theplanning process2, and the figure 1 shows how those methods are incorporated into
the planning process.
1. To have representatives in a committee/sub-committee or task-force
2. To disseminate the information about the planning process to the localresidents
3. To hold public hearings
4. To conduct surveys/focus group interviews and to collect public comments
and public opinions
5. To organize community forums
According to a national survey conducted by a research team from Japan
Research Association for Community Development, the method 1 (having
representatives in a committee) was the most common method used among
respondents (62.0%) followed by the method 5 (organizing community forums,49.8%) and the method 4 (collecting public comments, 44.6%) (Wake 2007: 140).
This research finding explains how citizen participation is still not fully integratedThe list is being modified from the research findings by the Research Committee forCommunity-wide Welfare Planning (2002).

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in actual practices despite the law requires.
Figure 1: Methods for citizen participation in community-wide welfare planning(by S. Murota)
Although it is only incorporated by less than half of the local governments,community forums (method 5), is considered as effective and reliable approach tocitizen participation. As it’s shown on figure 1, the method 2, 3, and 4 are either
disseminating information to the local residents or gathering feedbacks from thelocal residents whereas community forums provide a field for dialogues between theplanning committee members and the local residents. For participants, forums are
not only the place to share their needs and concerns but also the place where theylearn about the needs and concerns of their neighbors. Therefore, ideas for new
services and programs raised from the community forums are more reliable thanother ideas being raised through other methods.
The question here is how new services and programs are developed throughthis planning process. As the figure 1 shows, once the planning committee submits
its plan to the mayor, the local government would develop new services andprograms and implement them according to the plan. Therefore, if the committee
decided not to incorporate citizen participation and develop its plan according totheir own assessments, the entire planning process can be indifferent from thetraditional approach (i.e. rational planning). It is, however, determined by the basic
economic theory that the services are most utilized and therefore valuable when5they are developed according to the actual needs of the community. The caseexample below shows that a simple coordination of new services can enlighten
everyday life of local residents.

Case example:
In Matsue City, Shimane, where community-wide welfare plan was developedin 2004, the social welfare council launched new local van services according to theneeds raised by local residents during the planning process. The city is located in
mountainous area and is as wide as 41 km in east-west bound and 31 km in
north-south bound. During the planning process, more than 8000 local residents intotal were mobilized to community forums. One of the needs raised during theforum was a need for better transportation for people in remote areas. Especiallysenior citizens who are too old to drive needed a public transportation to the centerof the city where most public services and hospitals are. Once this idea was officiallyadopted to the city’s welfare plan, the welfare council contacted a local cab company
and arranged new shuttle services for the neighborhood, and its running cost wassubsidized by the local government. This case shows how local residents can be apart of the new service development and how the new services can be developed as aresult of collective efforts by various actors in a community.

Roles of Professional Workers in the Service and Program Development
Processes
So far, this paper has identified two new approaches to service and program
developments- through community-based care networks and community-wide
welfare planning. They are both carried by collective actions from professional
workers and local volunteers. The interest of this chapter is to analyze the roles ofprofessional workers in this process.
According to Hiroshi Fujii (2008), community intervention can be divided into
two parts- micro intervention and macro intervention, or they may be called direct
practice and indirect practice. This split has been debated since the early years ofsocial work formation, and it is addressed by generalist approaches today (Austin2005: 10).
As articulated in figure 2, micro intervention, which include the sequence fromintake to coordination of services to developing care networks, is surrounded bymacro intervention, which is composed of capacity building/outreach, community
6

research/liaison, and service and program developments. Until recently, microintervention was dominantly practiced by case workers and case managers whilemacro intervention was dominantly practiced by macro social worker as known as“community workers.” Kensaku Ohashi, a former president of Japanese Society forSocial Welfare, once noted that social work never existed in Japan until the 1990s(Ohashi 2006). By saying that he meant that social workers who integrate both
micro and macro approaches did not exist.
Figure 2: Roles of Professional Workers in Community Intervention

Modified from Fujii (2008)
With Ohashi’s effort to promote the idea of “community social work” originallyappeared in Berkeley report in England in 1982, it has reflected in the social
policies on a local level throughout Japan. Being articulated in figure 2, community
social workers are involved both in micro practice and macro practice. Therefore,
when it comes to service and program developments, both community social
workers and macro social workers play important roles. Community social workers
would be involved in service and program developments through individual cases
while macro social workers are involved by organizing community members,
conducting researches, and liaising and networking.
There is, however, no clear distinction between those two workers, and theymight be treated as same in some localities. Therefore, it is not the most important
thing to secure two types of professional workers in community interventions, but it
is rather important for the professional workers to secure the paths for local
7

residents to be a part of planning processes for better service and program
developments.

Towards integrated service and program developments
As mentioned at the very beginning of this paper, social welfare services andprograms can be developed either by the government or by private and voluntaryorganizations. Two new approaches featured in this paper are, however, not carried
either by the government or by the public sector. They are carried collectively
through the network of the government, professional workers, and volunteer
groups.
In the era of decentralization and devolution, the government may not playthe dominant role in program development, and partnerships between public sector
and private sector are the key issue for many developed capitalistic nations. As
Anthony Giddens states in his book, it is important to build a strong civil society inthe era of decentralization (Giddens 1998; chap. 3). We have observed the signs ofmaturer civil society of Japan in which citizen participation is actually being
practiced. More prominent question here is whether this tendency would continue
in coming years, and it should be answered by future studies.
Finally, the limitation of this paper needs to be pointed out. One of them isthat this paper featured only best practices, and they do not nearly represent theaverage practices in Japan. Therefore, we consider our next research steps shouldbe (1) to conduct a national survey and to examine the potential for more integrated
community interventions, (2) to identify new approaches for service and program
developments other than explored above, and (3) to develop a model for
implementation of those new approaches.

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