In contemporary Japan, 85% of children in alternative care remain housed
in large welfare institutions, as opposed to family-based foster care.
This publication examines how Japan has been isolated from global
discourse on alternative care, urging a shift in social work and
alternative care policies.
As the first ethnographic account from inside child guidance centres, it
makes a key contribution towards understanding the closed world of
Japan's social services; including the decision-making processes by
which a child is removed from the family and placed into care. In
addition, regional variation in policy implementation for alternative
care is outlined, with reference to detailed case studies and a
discussion around organisational cultures of the child guidance centres.
Where foster care is constructed as anything other than professional, it
is often seen as a threat to the child's family-bond with their natal
parent and therefore not used. Child Guidance Centres in Japan
destabilises this construction of the family-bond as singular and
discrete, highlighting new practices in alternative care.
Child Guidance Centres in Japan: Alternative Care and the Family will be
a vital resource for students, scholars of social work and Japanese
studies, as well as practitioners and lobbyists involved in alternative
care.