Tokyo: Japan’s Children and Families Agency hopes to encourage child consultation center employees to obtain a new certification to be created to tackle child abuse, Jiji Press has learned.

The agency hopes that many people will become child and family social workers, the new certification to be launched in April 2024 in response to an increase in child abuse consultation requests.

As over 100 hours of training is required for the certification, the agency plans to pay subsidies to cover the costs for child consultation centers to employ temporary workers in place of staff who will be absent to take the training.

The agency, set up in April this year, will include necessary expenses in its budget request for fiscal 2024 without giving a concrete figure.

Through the new certification system, the agency hopes to improve the expertise of child consultation center employees so that they can provide appropriate support to children and their parents.

The establishment of the certification system is included in the revised child welfare law, which was enacted in June last year.

In March this year, an expert panel under the welfare ministry decided that the certification will be granted to those with experience of working with children at child consultation centers, children’s homes, nurseries or other facilities.

Applicants will need to receive 101-266 hours of training, varying depending on what qualifications they already have, such as those for certified social worker or nursery teacher.

In order to obtain the new certification, candidates must pass a test held by an accreditation body to be set up as early as this autumn.

Some participants of the panel suggested subsidizing test fees and raising the salaries of employees of child consultation centers and other facilities as incentives to gain the certification.

The agency, which took over child abuse-related affairs from the welfare ministry, will work out details of support measures in the near future.

According to the welfare ministry, the number of consultations on child abuse handled by child consultation centers throughout Japan reached around 207,700 in fiscal 2021.

The figure hit a record high for 31 years in a row since the ministry started compiling the statistics in fiscal 1990, highlighting the urgent need to increase workers handling such cases and improve their quality.

JIJI Press