Supported Employment by Job Coaches in Japan(July,2002)

Job coaching system started
In May 2002, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare started a job coaching system as a project to support the employment of people with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. In this system, a job coach supports people with disabilities in their workplaces, and gives advice to employers and co-workers on the integration of people with disabilities. Before the implementation of this system, Japanese welfare facilities had supported disabled people only during their job training prior to employment - a part of adaptation of the supported employment system in the USA, which was established in 1986, and this gained some positive results.

However, some disabled people voluntarily left their jobs because the working environment was not adapted to support them. In order to address this problem, the Japanese government experimentally implemented job coaches in 2000 and 2001 to support disabled people at work, and established an 'Exploratory Committee' of experts in the field, to monitor and assess the training for coaches and methods of supporting disabled people. During a two-year implementation period, virtually all of the employers who received the support and guidance from the system evaluated it as being highly effective. In 2002, the government will allocate \1.8 billion (US$180 million) of budget funds to the Job Coaching System, training about 700 job coaches in order to support around 2000 people with significant disabilities. After training, job coaches will support disabled employees at their place of work for a few months and provide any necessary follow-up support afterwards.

Taking the initiative from the United States
Some private welfare facilities in Japan have trained and sent job coaches to support disabled people in 'grass roots' activities. One such example is the activity undertaken by the Nakamachidai Center on Developmental Disabilities, a social welfare corporation, which has been working to support employment of people with autism in Yokohama City.

The Director of the Supported Employment Project, Hiroshi Ogawa visited the United States in 1992 and learned the idea of supported employment in the United States and the methodology of job coaching system. At that time, a great number of parents of people with significant disabilities and the related organizations began to forward desperate requests to send support staff to help them to adapt themselves more smoothly when they actually started working.

Adapting the system in Japan
After returning to Japan from the United States, Hiroshi Ogawa has been supporting people with significant disabilities by sending job coaches. It has not been in the same way as the supported employment system in America, which is very organized under the legislation system. However Ogawa's activity is original and well established in the local community. Until now Ogawa's corporate organization and other NGOs have spent a part of their budget to send job coaches. However, under the government's new system, public funds can be used to employ job coaches, which has tremendous merit.

At the same time, since local vocational aid centers and workshops can employ and place their own job coaches, people with disabilities have more opportunities to be employed in their local communities. In addition, in Japan companies have to pay a penalty unless they achieve a 1.8% rate of employment of disabled people within their workforce. Therefore, not only for disabled persons, but also for the employers, the system is very beneficial because they can get special support from job coaches on how they should deal with people with disabilities when they employ them. As a result, employers will become more prepared to employ, for example, people with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities.

Tough assignments for job coaches
What job coaches must do first of all is to find workplaces for prospective disabled employees. In the case of Nakamachidai Center on Developmental Disabilities, they have visited business places such as co-ops and universities, most of which are nonprofit organizations. They also visit companies introduced by a job placement office and sometimes even "pitch" to small and medium sized enterprises. In Japan it is getting more and more difficult for people with disabilities to find jobs in manufacturing industry, since manufacturers are shifting the production of parts and components to Southeast Asia due to the prolonged economic depression. Therefore it is necessary to seek new workplaces for them in the field of distribution and service industries.

Challenges to upgrade the job coach position
At present in case of Nakamachidai Center on Developmental Disabilities people working as job coaches are mostly those who majored in psychology, welfare or education at universities and who are interested in social welfare. However in order to improve the system of job coaching, the key point is to train people to know more about business and have a good business sense, in addition to have the ability to understand the characteristics of people with disabilities. It is very important to improve the quality and contents of the training program of job coaches and to accumulate practical know-how in their actual work. At the same time, in order to get more competent job coaches, it is indispensable to increase the public budget and make it an attractive job in terms of wages and establish it as a qualified occupation.

In addition, in job coaching, it is very important to have close contact with companies regularly so that people with disabilities can be settled in their workplaces. Therefore, emphasis should be clearly placed on follow-up supports in job coaching system and its financial resources should be secured.

Finally, the most important thing is that the government should support social welfare corporations and NGOs that have been actually working to support employment of people with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities for more than 10 years. The word "job coach" must not disappear even after the boom subsides. The government and organizations should work in close cooperation with local communities and make constant efforts to raise people with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities, who have a great potential, to become valuable employees.