| Research Abstract |
The purpose of the study is first to explore the roles of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in different countries in the world that are involved in the primary secondary and tertiary prevention, and secondly to give insight into what directions the child protection system should move in relation to the balance between NGOs and governmental organizations (GOs) in Japan.
A three-year survey was conducted by 2 methods ; interviews and mail survey. 38 NGOs and 22 GOs in Hong Kong, the United States, and the United Kingdom were interviewed. Each agency was asked questions regarding its structure, specialized activities, relationships with other agencies, utilization of volunteers, financial condition, and outcome measures. Also, a 7-page questionnaire was mailed to 54 countries to collect overall information on NGOs.
The results of the interviews indicate that (1) regardless of its different cultural, historical, or legislative backgrounds, each NGO has its own specialty in one or more areas in child protection, successfully providing individually tailored services in a flexible manner to meet the unique need of each child and his/her family, that (2) in countries with well established child protection systems, GOs contract out services to NGOs with sufficient funding, and that (3) in selecting NGOs to have contract with, GOs rely on the outcome measures that each NGO presents.
The results of the mail survey show that (1) typical services provided by NGOs in most countries were services to meet basic human needs, foster/residential care, advocacy, and financial assistance, and that (2) those least provided by NGOs were services such as investigation of child abuse cases, removal of children from home, and therapies.
Finally analyzing the data gathered, several recommendations are presented, including the increase of governmental funding for NGOs to better implement their excellent community-based services for children and their families in Japan.
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