- taking the “Japan Portage Association’s Medium-Term Plan (2022-2025)” as a guide

Kunio Yajima
Vice-President and Office Director, Japan Portage Association

Ever since its establishment in 1985, the Japan Portage Association (President: Naoji Shimizu) has rolled out activities and projects to provide developmental consultation and family support for children with delayed or uneven development from birth onwards within Japan and overseas, based on the “Portage Program” (the generic term for the “Portage Guide to Early Education: PGEE”, an early intervention program to support preschool children with disabilities and their families which was developed by the “Portage Project”, organized in Portage, Wisconsin, USA, and for the translated and adapted versions of this used in each country).

A Portage consultation visit carried out as part of community-based rehabilitation activities (Nepal)

ithin Japan, we have 49 local groups and around 900 members, carrying out their activities according to the situation in each community. During the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onwards, we have had to hold not only our study seminars but also our regular meetings and established events online. We have drawn up “Portage Consultation Guidelines” and are taking into consideration the need to prevent the spread of infection when holding interviews.

Seminar to develop Portage Early Education Program Counsellors(Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia)

In terms of international cooperation, most recently we have been holding annual study seminars in Banepa, Kathmandu, and Baglung, based on the “Five-Year Plan (2014 – 2018)” of the Portage and Rehabilitation Association Nepal. Moreover, in 2017, as part of a JICA project, we held a study seminar in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, taking the opportunity to conclude an agreement with the Mongolia Portage Association, and are continuing our activities there.

In recent years, the welfare system for children with disabilities has been revised, laying out a direction for inclusive childcare and education in which diverse children learn together at preschool or in school education, whether or not they have a disability. Given such changes in social attitudes, at the same time as publishing an updated version of the “Portage Early Education Program”, we have drawn up the  “Japan Portage Association’s Medium-Term Plan (2022-2025)”, which has as its aims to “spread the Portage Program and contribute to the establishment and development of the early education system for preschool children who show delayed or uneven development” (Clause 3 of our statutes), taking into account the current situation of and issues for the Japan Portage Association. We have laid out 4 “goals” and a total of 33 “concrete initiatives” to aim to achieve this by 2025, the 40^th anniversary of our foundation, allowing us to visualize our policy for activities and projects going forward.

The updated “Portage Early Education Program” (2020)