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DUTIES AND FUNCTIONS OF WELFARE* OFFICERSMILITARY GOVERNMENT

PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE TECHNICAL BULLETIN

PH&W GHQ SOAP APO 500 October 194-7

Notes This statement, concerning the duties of Welfare Officers, isprovided for information purposes. This Bulletin‘supersedes TB-PH-ADM 2,February 194-7, concerning duties.of Military Government Welfare Officers,

1, General

Welfare Officers of the Military Government Teams and Regions have re-sponsibilities which are both unique and difficult. Their duties cover theentire field of;-public and private welfare services. Although many of thewelfare activities in Japan are not developed as fully as in other countriesof the world, It is usually found that the basic principles of welfare admin-istration- are applicable. These principles must be applied with considera-tion being given to the stage of development end the peculiarities of;, thesituations found in Japan, ■;

2, Objectives v , v> . ; ... 4 .... .. .

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\ 'ja, The aims of the welfare programs in Military Government in Ja-

pan are to be obtained through Japanese agencies, using Japanese personnelend supplies with the aim of causing the Japanese program to be .self-,

•. sufficient in all respects,- Surveillance is exercised by'Welfare Officersof Military Government Teams to insure compliance with directives "issued bySCA.P to the Japanese Government, The Welfare Officer supervises the exe-cution of the directives of the Supreme Commander and gives advice to the lo-cal Japanese Government on technical matters in the field of public and pri-vate welfare administration. The objectives of the welfare program in Japaninclude: -

• • ■' (l) The establishment and maintenance of a program which pro-• >

- vides for the welfare.of the civil population,to the ex-tent necessary to prevent unrest in order that the objec-

, tives of the occupation are carried out,

(2) The establishment and maintenance of a, system of adminis-tering public assistance (outdoor relief) on the*basis ofindividual need) regardless of the cause of such.need,equally and without preferential treatment,. r .

(3) Improvement of the standard of care provided to inmates ofpublic end private institutions (indoor relief).

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• b, • MA satisfactory public welfare orogr&ra in Japan will include:(Ref; AG 720 (22 Oct A5)PH. GHQ, SOAP, dtd 22 Oct U5, Subj: Public Health andWelfare Procedure in Japan;,

T? (l) Adequate organization end integration of all available pub-lic and private welfare, social insurance and relief agen-cies at the national, prefecture! and local levels.

"(2) Proper supervision (without interference with functioningof the agency) of Japanese civilian staffs by OccupationalForces personnel,

"(3) Application of sound technical and administrative proced-ures, prevention of discriminatory practices and establish-ment of adequate financial and case load reporting proced-ures enforced by direction of the Supreme Commander, n

3 • Directives

a. Many important welfare programs ere being carried out as a re-sult of directives issued by SOAP to the Japanese Government, These memoran-da or directives are numbered consecutively and have the short title of SCAPIN(SOAP Index Number), SOAP may instruct the Japanese Government by means of amemorandum to a particular ministry, or a program of action may be decided up-on by the Japanese after consulting with personnel of SOAP, When a directive(SCAPIN) is issued to the Japanese Government and surveillance is required, ap-propriate directions are issued to the Commanding General, Eighth Army, Thesedirectives (usually called coramrnd letters) are the basis of Operational Di-rectives issued by Eighth Army Military 6ovorno®nt'Section, which* specificallyset forth what surveillance is required.

b. In the field of public welfare a basic directive is SCAPIN 775 is-sued on 27 February 1946 which provides in part; ’’The***Japanese Government(will) •atrbllsh a single National Governmental agency which through prefcctur-al and local government channels will provide adequate food, clothing, shelter,and medical care equally to all indigent persons without discrimination or pre-ferential treatment."

L, , Technical Bulletins

In addition to directives, SCAP issues technical bulletins which are iden-tified with the symbol (TB-PH-WEI ), Translations of these bulletins are pro-vided to the Japanese when the subject matter is deemed appropriate. One ofthe purposes of the technical bulletins is to establish a common basis of un-derstanding between the Occupation Forces and Japanese personnel.

5• Weekly Bulletin

The Public Health and Welfare Section (PHW) of SCAP also issues a weeklybulletin which is mailed directly to Military Government units. The purposeof this publication is to provide Military Government units with informationconcerning welfare, social security and public health activities in Japan,

6, Dutios

Duties of Military Government Welfare Officers may be divided into twogeneral classes; (l) specific duties which ere directed- by higher head-quarters end (2) general and technical dutios involving the guidance of,Jap-anese engaged in the administration of public and private welfare, programs.The following brief statements set forth the dutios of welfare officers withspecific references indicating specific duties as opposed to general and/ortechnical duties,

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pPblfro‘Assistance■ The administration of the Japanese publicassistance program, provided, by the Daily Life Security Law, is supervised tomake certain that welfare services are provided equitably in accordance withneed and that no preferential treatment is given to favored groups (Ref;SCAPIN 775, dtd 27 Feb A6), A continuing review of the, administration of pub-lic assistance is maintained to insure; (l) the right of the individual toapnly for assistance and receive a prompt decision as to his eligibility;(2) uniformity of procedure in determining-need and amount of assistance;(3) prompt attention to complaints and appeals from adverse decisions-;.(A) proper substantiation of all expenditures from public funds,. Memorandum*.GHQ, SCAP, dated 6 Mar A6, Subj: Information of General Application Pertain-ing to Directive Number (SCAPIN 77$). states in part: ’’The following is a gen-eral statement regarding Occupation Force responsibility for■surveillance ofthe directive, -

’’Inspections mad?, of local relief administration should include areview'of record keeping procedures, type of investigations made, kind of per-sonnel employed as relief administrators end welfare i.nvestigs tors, controlsestablished over financial expenditures,,methods of distribution of reliefsupplies and accuracy of statistical information compiled. Suggestions forimprovements or changes should be included in reports rendered this headquar-ters through channels,”

b. Institutional Care; Welfare and penal institutions are inspectedto determine adequacy of care provided to inmates and necessary action takento correct inadequacies discovered. Private as well as public.institutionsare inspected (Ref; OD 3, dtd 6 Jan A7, Hq Bth A.rmy), Action is taken to im-prove the standard of care of existing institutions and to make certain thatno new institutions are'built unless .the need for such has been established.

c. Child Welfare: In most prefectures special v/elfare services havebeen established for children. In many places these services.have been estab-lished as a result of the interest of Military Government personnel. Respon-sibilities include' the surveillance of juvenile delinquency prevention pro-grams; day nurseries; recreational and club activities and the work of theJuvenile Court, With, the passage of the Child Welfare Law, Military Govern-ment welfare officers will have additional responsibilities for implementingthe law in the prefectures.

• d. Financing of Welfare Activities: Surveillance is maintained toinsure compliance with existing policy that private welfare services are- net

subsidized on a lump-sum basis. Insofar as practicable public funds are tobe expended by public rather than private agencies. (Ref: Memorandum, SCAP,

dtd 7 Nov 4-6, Subj: Information of General Application Pertaining to SCAPIN775).

e. Homeless Persons and Housing; Welfare activities for homelesspersons and vagrants are encouraged including services and housing for repat-riates, Programs for the provision of needed additional housing are beingdeveloped and carried out.

f. Disaster Plans: Prefecture disaster relief plans ere kept up-to-date by the Japanese and the Welfare Officer should be familiar with the pro-visions of the prefecture plan. In case of disaster, action is taken to in-sure that adequate emergency relief is provided and that prompt reports aresubmitted to higher headquarters.

g. Foreign Nationals; Surveillance is maintained to insure compli-ance with directives requiring the Japanese Government to make available asupplementary food ration for purchase by foreign nationals. Action is takento make certain that special relief programs for needy foreign nationals, suchas that o-p the International Relief Committee, are being administered properlyif such programs exist in the prefecture (Pef: OD S3, dtd 3 Oct 46, 0D 83/2dtd 19 Nov 46, Hqs 8th Army, Subjs Ration for United Nations Nationals, Neu-tral Nationals, and Stateless Persons),

h. Administration; The improvement of the organization of welfareactivities is to be carried out in accordance with sound principles of publicwelfare administration. This includes; proper organization on the prefecturelevel (in the Kencho) end analysis of the organization of the separate unit ofthe prefecture! government responsible for administering welfare services; therelationship of the prefecture1 government to local units of government such ascities, towns and villages; sound financial policies end procedures; accurateand prompt reporting of statistics; and good personnel administration. Adequatefinancing, accurate reporting and trained personnel ere essential to publicwelfare administration.

i, LARA (Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia); The Welfare Offi-cer should be familiar with the activities of Li FA within the prefecture andshould report any misuse of these relief supplies furnished by this agencyfor distribution by the Japanese (Fef; SCAPIN 1169 dtd 30 Aug 46; PublicHealth and Welfare Technical Bulletin, Sept 47, Subj; Licensed Agencies forRelief in Asia, TB-PH-WEL 3),

j, Japanese Fed Cross; Each of the prefecture! chapters of the Jap-anese Red Cross is being reorganized and may from time to time request theaid of the Military Government Welfare Officer, Reorganization of the Societyis proceeding with technical advice and guidance of an International Activities,American Red Cross staff attached to Welfare Division, Public Health and Wel-fare Section, GHQ, SCAR,

k. Former Military Installations; The use of former Japanese Army-Navy installations for welfare purposes will be recuested at times. Such ap-plications are encouraged when the need is established.for specific servicesnot available from existing community resources.

1. School Programs: The Welfare Officer will encounter several pro-grams which will make it advisable to work jointly with the Education Officerof the Military Government team. These include; (l) the school lunch pro-gram and (2) sohocl programs for handicapped children (blind, deaf and delin-quent) and (3) the development in higher educational institutions of curricu-la which will give adequate training to persons who wish to enter the fieldof social service.

7, Training

Responsible Japanese officials are being encouraged to develop in-servicetraining urograms which include publications and conferences to provide infor-mation to all persons responsible for any. phase of administering the welfareprogram. Such training programs are often carried out by the Japan Socialr ork Association (Nippon Shakai Jigyo Kyokai) and the Minsei-iin FederationZen-Nihon (Minsei-iin Renmei) under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Welfare,In some prefectures regularly established Japanese universities and colleges•re providing education in the field of social service.

8, Community Organization

An important phase of the welfare program in Japan is the encouragementand review of Welfare plans developed by the Japanese both for the presentand the '.future. Attention is given to the coordination of public and privatewelfare activities in the prefecture, particularly in the establishment of newagencies and programs. Planning is also needed in order that existing pro-grams and agencies will develop their activities to meet the particular needsof tho community and not waste their time and effort on work for which thereis li + tle need. Long range planning is necessary so that local programs willfit into the programs which are being carried on by national agencies, yet beadapted to the community in which they operate. Such planning includes devel-opment of sound policies and procedures; training of personnel; maximum utili-zation of the abilities of personnel; a sound organizational structure; finan-cial and statistical policies and procedures. The responsibi 1 ity for planningrests with the Japanese in the community.

9• Preparation of Reports

An important function of military government teams is to H observe and re-port”, The reports are of great value in keeping commanders in higher head-quarters informed, especially SCAR where policy is set and corrective actiontaken, when necessary, on a national level.

a. Regular Reports? In order to reduce the work required for report-ing all regular recurring reports concerning public end private welfare acti-vities are included in Annex B-2 of the Monthly Military Government /ctivitiesReport (Ref; OD 37, Hq 8th Army, dtd 30 April Ll) •

b. Special Reports: Special reports may be submitted as desired, ormay bo required by higher headquarters, In any event, such reports should besubmitted when a local situation require* action on the national level.

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10 ■ Office Administration •'

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, The .Welfare;- Offleer is also responsible for supervision of personnel as-signed to the Welfare Section of the Military Government teem including Jrpan-

, ese nationals assigned as interpreters, translators and as welfare investiga-tors. In general, it is recommended that the number of Japanese nationalsused as welfare investigators be kept to a minimum (ordinarily not more thenfive). Usually the existing Japanese public welfare organization should beused to do this work.

11. Welfare Officers. Region

In addition to processing routine correspondence, reports and directives,• the Regional Welfare Officers . ..

- • a. Maintains staff• supervision of the welfare programs within-theregion by means of frequent, 1 detailed field inspections, and conferences

b. Assists Welfare Officers of Prefectural Military GovernmentTeams in understanding and carrying out their duties.,

c, Reports to higher headquarters problems which affect several•prefectures and recommends action to correct difficulties encountered.

12. Methods of Work: •

The methods used by Military,Government Welfare Officers to carryout their duties vary according to the situation and judgment as to the methodwhich would be most effective. The methods used by Military Government Wel-fare Officers include: conferences, field trips and review of reports. •

r* • *, a* Analysis of Reports; Review and analysis of routine and special

reports received by the Welfare Officer from the Japanese Prefectural Govern-ment is a valuable method of achieving the objective of the welfare programin Military Government. Reports from local Japanese welfare officials are fre-quently the basis of routine end special reports which the Welfare Officer ore-pares for submitting to higher headquarters. Since the translation of Japanesereports may be ambiguous, frequently further study of them is needed beforethey can be understood. Statistics submitted usually need to be reviewed rndchecked before they can be used. It is particularly important that the periodof time covered by the reoort b$ specifically set forth and that items report-ed be carefully defined.- Time will be saved and misunderstandings reduced ifan effort is made to secure adequate translations. Reports received may bethe basis of-subsequent conferences with responsible Japanese officials and areused in field inspections to determine accuracy of facts reported. The re-ceipt and review of reports must frequently precede conferences and fieldtrips in order that these activities be worthwhile,

b. Conferences; It has generally been found effective for the Wel-fare Officer to have regularly scheduled conferences with the Japanese offi-cials responsible for the welfare'program in the prefecture. This conferencemay be scheduled for the same time every week in a designated place. It hasbeen found advisable for a newly assigned welfare officer to make clear to the

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Japanese officials at the outset the extent of the programs in which the Wel-fare Officer is interested* This will ordinarily include all programs forwhich the we]fare unit of the prefecture is responsible. At times it willbe advisable to hold conferences concerning special problems which arise#

c, Field Trips: It is particularly important for all prefecturaland regional welfare officers to examine and actually see conditions in thofield. Local officials who are responsible for administering welfare pro-grams in local communities should be interviewed in their own place of work.Field inspections are made of local offices administering the Daily Life Se-curity Tew in order to determine actual methods of operation. Inspections ofinstitutions will also be necessary since a percentage of the persons receiv-ing welfare services are inmates of institutions. Assistance programs (out-door relief) in Japan provide aid to over 90% of all persons receiving bene-fits from welfare programs, while less than 10% are residing in institutions(indoor relief). In making field trips, special consideration should be giv-en to meetings which are held by the Japanese officials concerning specialwelfare urograms. Such meetings are held by the Minsei-iin r nd other groupsin the prefecture, In many cases the interest of the welfare officer insuch activities and his attendance at meetings give necessary support to aworthwhile activity which might otherwise not be encouraged by responsibleofficials,