Natsuki Sato
Welfare Support Division, Health and Welfare Department, Yurihonjo City

１. City Overview

Yurihonjo City is the largest city in the prefecture, located in the southern part of the coast of Akita Prefecture in the Tohoku region. In March 2005 one city and seven towns merged into one municipality. The population of the city is 72,278 (as of March 31, 2023), and the aging rate is over 38%.

The city is moving forward with digitization and is working to reduce the decline in administrative services to cope with an aging and declining population. The city’s efforts include establishing a remote consultation system that connects a wide range of areas and experimenting with the operation of a “mobile city hall” using a vehicle. In the field of welfare, the city is implementing the multi-layered support system development program, a national government initiative for a comprehensive continuous support system. We are currently developing a consultation system for those who have difficulties in daily life through the collaboration of multiple professionals.

2. History of Development of Community Life Support Centers

The city has social resources such as the Colony for Persons with Disabilities operated by the Akita Prefecture Social Welfare Corporation (hereafter referred to as the Corporation), other welfare service providers for persons with disabilities, and schools for special needs education.
In addition, the Core Consultation Support Center for children and adults with disabilities was established in FY2013. Its operation has been entrusted to the Corporation, which was created to provide consultation support for persons with disabilities in the community.
Since the establishment of the Core Consultation Support Center, the city has emphasized “collaboration,” and the public and private sectors have worked together, not by entrusting entire projects from the government to the private sectors, but by making the most of their respective strengths, especially maximizing those of the private sector.
In the midst of efforts to improve consultation services through such collaboration, the development of the Community Life Support Center began during the formulation of the Fourth Welfare Plan for Persons with Disabilities in FY2015, with the stated objective of establishing a center for the first time. The Corporation, which is the trustee of the Core Consultation Support Center, had a plan to establish a new facility in the city (Yurihonjo Community Life Support Center). During the discussion of the details, the Corporation already had the idea of ​​creating a facility for the local community, which would have a major impact. We are grateful that the city was blessed with the social resources needed to develop the Center, and that we were able to take the first step toward the goal.
Since then, we have been working on area-wide development step by step to improve the following functions:
(1) Consultation
(2) Admission into welfare facilities in case of an emergency
(3) Provision of opportunities for independent living
(4) Securing and training professional personnel
(5) Building a community system

I would now like to expound on the current status of Yurihonjo City in regard to each function

(1) Consultation

Coordinators are assigned in the city government, the core consultation support center, the entrusted consultation support service providers, and specific consultation support service providers by utilizing the Support for Continuing Community Life.
Through this collaboration, monthly liaison meetings of consultation support offices are held at the Core Consultation Support Center. The meetings discuss how to identify households that cannot expect support from other sources in the event of an emergency, develop a communication system by registering users of welfare services during normal times while confirming mutual cooperation, as well as establish a system to provide prior coordination, consultation, and other necessary services required in case of an emergency caused by the nature of their disabilities, and other related matters.
As mentioned earlier, since the establishment of the Core Consultation Support Center, we have been working together with the public and private sectors to create a consultation system.
Therefore, we believe that the Center has reached a certain level of functionality.

(2) Admission into welfare facilities in case of an emergency

By utilizing the consultation functions mentioned above, based on a good grasp of the situation in the community at normal times, we have a system in place to take necessary actions such as the admission of a person with a disability in the event of a sudden illness of a caregiver or a change in the condition of the person with a disability, aside from ensuring the usual short-term admission, as well as communicating with medical institutions.
As part of this system, we rent one room each for men and women in a group home at the Yurihonjo Community Life Support Center and entrust admissions to the group home in emergency cases.
After all, the availability of emergency admission services is one of the key factors that determines the reduced risk exposure of persons with disabilities living in the community who are placed in difficult situations.

(3) Provision of opportunities for independent living

This function is to provide persons with disabilities with opportunities to use welfare services, such as communal living assistance, and to experience living alone as part of their transition to community life and living independently from parents. The above-stated rooms in the group home of the Yurihonjo Community Life Support Center may be used as a place to experience living alone, as long as there are no occupants. This Center also houses the Employment and Life Support Center for Persons with Disabilities, which provides comprehensive support for better independent living by offering places and opportunities that enable them to find employment.

(4) Securing and training professional personnel

To secure and train professional human resources, the Yurihonjo City Council for the Support of Persons with Disabilities holds various kinds of training for those who work for welfare facilities in the community to improve and standardize the level of services. We must ensure a system capable of providing expertise to persons with disabilities who require constant medical care, those who have behavioral disabilities, or those with severer disabilities as they age.
Training is also conducted in the three subcommittees of the Council (Daily Life Subcommittee, Institution and Facility Subcommittee, and Consultation Support Subcommittee). A total of about 10 training sessions a year include group discussions on themes set each fiscal year.
Furthermore, in addition to working on peer support, we also provide support to consultation supporters through case studies and group supervision at the Consultation Support Subcommittee and the subsequent liaison meeting of consultation support offices.

(5) Building a community system

The consultation support specialists at the Core Consultation Support Center are responsible for overall coordination of the service provision system in the community as a function of ensuring a service provision system that can meet various needs and building a system of connecting local social resources in the community. The Yurihonjo City Council for the Support of Persons with Disabilities examines and sorts local issues and difficult cases on how to address them to promote the improvement of the support system.
Moreover, to each subcommittee and consultation support liaison committee, we have added the persons in charge of establishing the multi-layered support system. When a family with a person with a disability is confronted with various problems, these persons in charge cooperate with one another to promptly create a system that enables comprehensive support through the cooperation of various professionals.

3. Future Tasks

Just as in other municipalities, one issue we have is that various functions are now concentrated in the Yurihonjo Community Life Support Center (Corporation), where the Core Consultation Support Center is housed.
As Yurihonjo City covers a vast area, a major issue is how to improve the services by utilizing the capabilities of welfare service providers and others so that persons with disabilities can live in the community with security. For that, we think that it is necessary for the city to provide a detailed explanation to service providers on how to register for the Community Life Support Center Program to deepen their understanding.
In addition, as for the admission for those who need constant medical care, as there are currently no facilities that can accept such persons, we believe that it is necessary to encourage the creation of one such facility through the Council of Support for Persons with Disabilities.
Furthermore, since there are issues that are not limited to the disability field, we believe that it is necessary to strengthen the network by utilizing other systems and projects for collaboration across multiple fields and between the public and private sectors to help promote support to the wider city area.

Edited and published by the Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities. Published on May 25th, 2023.