Configuration of Faculty
The Department of Social Welfare has three educational divisions; Welfare Policy, Community Welfare and Clinical Welfare. These divisions give a comprehensive picture of welfare from human services to assistance at a community level, from direct assistance to welfare administration, system and policy aspects. Students are able to learn theories and practices that are necessary for providing assistance.
The Department of Human Welfare has two divisions; Lifelong Development Support and Welfare Psychology. These divisions promote deeper understanding of human beings and their lifelong development based on various scientific principles and methodologies that are applicable to social welfare studies with the fundamental knowledge of social welfare studies in mind. They also cultivate practical methods and techniques to apply to broader social welfare issues.
The Department of Social Welfare
Expectations for welfare change from time to time. The unprecedented level of decreasing birthrate and aging population have further complicated and diversified the needs for welfare. In other words, it is increasingly necessary to comprehensively study practical and direct assistance to address various individual welfare problems raised in daily life. It is also important to study indirect assistance to allow systematic or political approaches to actualize direct assistance. The department aims to enhance students’ analytical, planning and practical abilities to support humans and their lifestyle by combining two kinds of assistance from a community point of view.
The Welfare Policy Division
Looking at welfare from the perspective of ordinary citizens
While more and more people need assistance including elderly people and people with disability at a community level, insecurity in life and job is spreading among young people as well. We study what systems and policies are needed to address these issues from a perspective of ordinary citizens, particularly by deepening understanding on municipal and other specialized organizations that manage, administrate and provide welfare services and by studying how they can collaborate with each other. We also develop knowledge and skills that are required in creating the welfare systems that connects people, and learn to make better judgment on understanding humans and the direction societies should take.
The Community Welfare Division
Towards a society with universal welfare
Our life units consist of communities and sub-groups that comprise them and there are many different challenges in creating a society where everybody can live together. In order to tackle regional challenges, we study both methods and technologies including related fields of telecommunication technologies, the creation of living environments and regional management to realize more universal communities where all people respect differences and live in comfort.
The Clinical Welfare Division
The Clinical Welfare Division
Our goal is for students to master theories and techniques for practicing social welfare, particularly to build special capacities that are necessary in direct human services. Students learn integrated approaches based on understanding of social, physical and mental aspects of people who need assistance including values and a theoretical base, social work assisting techniques, research and assessment methods to measure effects of assistance that are all necessary for supporting social welfare.
The Department of Human Welfare
In order to respond to more complex and diversified welfare needs, it is necessary to learn methods, techniques and wisdom in related human science fields in addition to social welfare studies in the narrow sense. The department allows a deeper understanding of lifelong human growth as well as psychological and behavioral features in each stage through psychology and developmental science in addition to basic social welfare studies. By doing so, we aim for students to acquire knowledge and skills and enhance their abilities to practice them to provide appropriate assistance to people with developmental and psychological issues in their lives.
The Lifelong Development Support Division
Dealing with issues at each stage of development
Childhood is not the only time humans develop. Humans are developing even before they are born. They are not just developing without any difficulties, however. We all face various challenges at different stages of our lives. We think about, study, and practice the kind of support that allows decent life even with such barriers from the perspective of developmentally challenged people of all ages. In doing so, we are able to grow as people.
The Welfare Psychology Division
From “human” study to a welfare approach
We study to reach a deeper understanding of consciousness and the behavior of human beings that are the receivers of assistance based on psychological thinking and methods. We also think theoretically about what approaches could be taken so that assistance is accepted for its sake and bears fruits. Students are also encouraged to pay attention to human cognition, development, relations, and clinical and criminological fields in order to learn methods to develop wisdom that contributes to human welfare while aiming to master specific knowledge and skills.
