according to changes in industrial structures and types of employment available, and the increased variety of the students' dreams; (g) enrich the supervision provided to graduates; (h) improve the qualities of the teachers in charge; and (i) enlighten society and promote understanding.
E. Institutional Services
1. Institutions and Support for Community Living
It has been pointed out frequently that Japanese social services policies for people with disabilities,especially for people with intellectual disabilities, favor institutionalization. Many residential institutions have been established and managed as if their purpose was to protect people with disabilities for their entire lives, in order to meet the parents' demand for assurance that their sons and daughters with disabilities will be all right after their parents' death.
But the "Plan for People with Disabilities", published at the end of last year, based on the principle of normalization, emphasizes the promotion of various programs in these seven years extensively aiming that people with disabilities will live in their own community together with other people who do not have disabilities. Responding to these demands, it is our pressing need to create a social service system that enables people with disabilities to lead ordinary lives in their community, just as do others without disabilities.
Certainly, within the past ten years, some attempts have been made to enhance the possibility that people with intellectual disabilities can live in the community backed up by institutions; since 1989, a support program of community life for people with mental retardation has included a strong base-facility program for people with disabilities and a program of support center for community life. However, these do not have an adequate financial foundation, and are no more than options for an institution. Thus, the state of the art in Japan is far from a real support system for community living. Our service system for people with intellectual disabilities is still institution-centered.
The "Plan for People with Disabilities" mentioned above cited a survey made by the Ministry of Health and Welfare that clearly shows that people with intellectual disabilities and their families expect improvements in the social service system that will enable community living. Thus, it is now time that our welfare policy for people with intellectual disabilities emphasizes support for the life style chosen and decided by the consumers. To fulfill their expectation, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the local governments must prepare genuine enforcement of policies supporting community living; also, the institutions must try to utilize their function as one of the social resources in the community, in order to support the community living of people with disabilities.
The institutions have a store of experience and knowledge about the treatment of people with intellectual disabilities, and have rich personnel resources as well. They should open this potential to the community at large, and not keep it within the institutions. The institutions will be able to play extremely important roles if individual institutions do not insist on retaining their own management policies, but rather are able to function as a part of the system to support the ordinary lives of people with disabilities in their communities, and if they sometimes participate in the community service system by providing their know-how and resources.
2. Promotion of Activity Centers for People with Severe Disabilities
Year by year, parents increasingly hope that their children will attend day centers in the community after graduation from school. But we do not have a mature system that provides a place to go for people whose disabilities are too severe to enable them to participate in sheltered workshops. Although day rehabilitation centers and day service programs are increasing, they cannot adequately serve people with severe disabilities within the management funds allotted under the national standard, and the day care programs for children, started in 1996, are limited in the range of consumers with profound mental and physical disabilities that they can take.
