Have you ever heard the word “young carers”?

It is a recent thing to use the word “young carer” in Japan, which means “Young+Carer”.

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, young carers are “the children under 18 who take responsibilities that usually adults do, such as chores, help and nurse their families and support them emotionally when they have family members taking care of. (reference)

How much the concept of “young carer” has been infiltrated into schools in Japan?

According to the research about the actual condition of young carers conducted by the Japan Research Institute:

・51% of schools know the word but do not address any special measures

・41% of schools know the word and consciously respond to it

As mentioned above, around 90% of schools acknowledge the concept of “young carer” although more than half of them cannot respond to it.

The reasons why they do not act are;

・It is difficult to grasp and respond to the family situations since its domestic problems as a school

・The children are having no problems at school, are not aware of any problems and think it is normal (reference)

Children tend not to talk about their families.

In addition, children are not able to judge good and bad, which leads them not to be aware of their situation as a problem.

Those children often have signs such as;

・Running away from home

・Stealing someone’s belongings

・School refusal.

As the children make such alerts, it is important to be friends with those children with “compassion”.

Our institute develops social contribution projects aiming to actualise Pax Japonica, making Japan peaceful. We take the problem of “young carers” seriously and tackle this problem.

Yoko Nakano, Social Contribution Group