Community Advocacy for People with Dementia (program to fight unscrupulous business practices, respite care, Welfare Guardianship Support Center, community welfare rights advocacy)

“Iki-Iki (Vital Life) Fellowship Salon” Iga City Council of Social Welfare is at work on a comprehensive community-wide program enlisting ordinary citizens to protect the civil and human rights of people with dementia. The program comprises the following specific undertakings.

Development of a community care system (from 1985)
Organization of a caregivers association (from 1990)
Community welfare-rights advocacy program (from 2000)
Respite care program (from 2003)
Program to fight unscrupulous business practices (from 2004)
Iga City Counseling Network (from 2004)
Welfare Guardianship Support Center (from 2006)

“Iki-Iki (Vital Life) Fellowship Salon” A particularly urgent issue was the steady rise in reports of unscrupulous business practices, which seemed to be increasing faster than authorities’ ability to uncover and deal with them. To address this problem, we decided to hold an Iga Fraud-Busters Training Workshop predicated on the concept of “stamping out fraud through citizen participation.” Attorneys, staff from the Consumer Affairs Center, and others taught a series of seven classes attended by thirty-six citizens. In fiscal 2006, the program was able to prevent unscrupulous business transactions totaling approximately 30 million yen. By leveraging the power of ordinary citizens, we are working to build a community where people with dementia can live in safety and security.

Through its wide-ranging efforts, the Iga City Council of Social Welfare has helped nurture within the community a growing network of individual citizens and groups that understand and support people with dementia.

If enough citizens take an interest in the rights of people with dementia and related issues and in looking after their welfare, unscrupulous operators will not be able to take advantage of them. The Fraud Busters perform the following functions:

uncovering unscrupulous business practices and directing victims to counseling services
helping people exercise their right to a cooling-off period [for purchases]
communicating information on previous cases of unscrupulous business practices
working as a team to defeat fradulent sales techniques

and others.

In addition, by participating in the process of solving the problems faced by people with dementia and their families, citizens learn to sympathize with the circumstances and predicaments in which such people find themselves and share in their worries, their joys, and their sorrows. It is also a program that allows people to start thinking early about how they would like things to be if this should happen to them.

As a growing number of citizens understand and relate to people with dementia and as various measures are undertaken on their behalf, we take a giant step toward becoming a community where people can continue to live in safety and security even if afflicted with dementia.

For a community to be “dementia friendly,” it is important to take measures against unscrupulous business practices and enhance our “adult guardianship.” This program is involved in ongoing, realistic efforts, such as training of citizen supporters and the Fellowship Salon, that put the power of private citizens to work with positive results.
Through wide-ranging activities, the program is instilling in citizens a perspective that asks, “What can be done to protect the rights of people with dementia?” To ensure that people with dementia can live in security, both the idea and the reality of rights advocacy are critical. In this sense the program can provide hints for other communities and a wide range of other activities.
Social welfare councils exist in communities throughout Japan. This program makes use of the special character of a social welfare council and as such can serve as a reference for similar undertakings around the country.