Japan’s Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry to ‘relax’ staff standards to increase number of independent living services

Written with extracts from The Yomiuri Shimbun via Yahoo!

October 12 2021

TOKYO – On October 1, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced at the Social Security Council’s Disability Subcommittee (chaired by Kaoru Kikuchi, Professor of Waseda University) that it would relax the staffing standards for “independent living support” for disability welfare services. It is necessary to assign a service manager to receive the designation of the business establishment of this service, but it is judged that this would be a barrier and entry will not proceed. By relaxing this standard, the number of business establishments and users would be increased.

Independent living support is a service that regularly visits people who have left a disability support facility or group home and started living alone, and responds as needed. Support the initial stage after leaving the hospital and try to establish a life. It was just established in 2018, and the number of business establishments is as small as 242 as of April this year.

Similar to “community settlement support” in which the consultation support office is responsible for emergency response for persons with disabilities living alone. If the consultation support establishment receives the designation of “independent living support” establishment, it will continue to be involved from the initial stage after leaving the office.

It is said that the standard usage period of independent living support can be renewed in one year, but it was pointed out that this point is rigid and difficult to use. It is said that there are individual differences in the shade of support, and there are some aspects that do not follow the current system.

Based on these points, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will finalize the revised content of the Comprehensive Support Law for Persons with Disabilities by the end of this year. The main goal is to encourage people to leave the facility and stabilize their lives afterwards.