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Gathering 2010 - Monday 1530 - Naomi and Kaoru Inoue

Submitted by adrian on 15 May 2010 - 12:17am

Presenters:
Naomi Inoue (University of Denver, USA)
Kaoru Inoue (Doho University, JAPAN)

Abstract
Listening to the children about the reunification with their families is very important, but it’s not easy to do that in a concrete and constructive way after several years’ separation. Asking them about their three houses or their concerns and strengths is very powerful to help them think about their lives at home and to build safety network for family reunification by having discussions about those visualized materials in family group meeting. We will present two cases and the visualized materials that we use.

Presentation
It has just started in Japan that helping professionals in the field of child maltreatment make a clear goal to preserve families and listen to the desires of children and their families. Moreover, foster care and child adoption have not been familiar in Japan.

Japanese helping professionals often start the process of family reunification after they keep the children for several years in child residential care facilities. Listening to the children about the reunification with their families is very important, but it’s not easy to do that in a concrete and constructive way after several years’ separation. Asking them about their three houses or their concerns and strengths is very powerful to help them think about their lives at home and to build safety network for family reunification by having discussions about those visualized materials in family group meeting. We have given helping professionals trainings for using these methods, and worked as consultants and facilitators of family group meeting.

We will present two cases; Hanako had been in a children’s home for six years from her birth, and Taro had been there for nine years since he was one year old.
In case Hanako, we facilitated the discussion to ensure her safe life after going back home, showing her three houses, which texts her therapist dictated and which drawings she drew herself, at the family group meetings. They involved her, her five siblings, her mother’s boyfriend, her mother’s friend, her social worker of the child guidance center, and the staff of the children’s home.

In case Taro, who is mild-mentally retarded, a family social worker of the children’s home and one of us facilitated together the family group meetings, showing the texts about his concerns and reliefs with the drawings of his crying face and smiling face, and his eco map with the drawings of the peoples’ faces, all of which he made himself with the help of the family social worker. His parents, his social worker of the child guidance center, and a social service worker attended these meetings.
In our presentation, we will present the visualized materials that we use.