Developing "care manager": decreasing the chances of people quitting their jobs to take care of their families by providing more support

    The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare will launch the program, named "care manager," which will be used to support workers who need to take care of their families (e.g. one's elderly or sick parents), starting next fiscal year. This plan is to decrease the number of people quitting their jobs to take care of their families. This fiscal year, they are setting a new in-service training program directed towards supporting people who are working and taking care of their family concurrently. They aim to expand the program through the local government.

　About 100,000 people quit their jobs to take care of their families in a year. The government is aiming to reduce the people quitting their jobs to zero, but many resign without knowing that there are support systems such as family leave.

　Care managers will take on the role of listening to family members and elderly folks who need caregiving and making care plans that will suit each individual. However, there has been a problem identified with a lack of knowledge about the support system for workers, even though they might have abundant knowledge and experience with supporting the elderly as they care for their family members. For this reason, the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare decided to train care managers to consider working conditions when making care plans.

　The new training program will take about a half to one day to complete the course material. Care managers, experts, and the caregivers’ support group, etc. are still discussing and reviewing the details of the course content. They intend to launch the program in its provisional phase this fiscal year. They are still examining case studies, which include the practical application of the support systems, like exemptions from working overtime and adjusting time schedules to accommodate shift transfers.

　The cases where quitting their jobs affect one's financial situation and mental health are endless, but companies also have a risk of losing their best employees if people continue to resign to take care of their families.

Source: https://yomidr.yomiuri.co.jp/article/20201207-OYT1T50156/?catname=news-kaisetsu_news