Intergenerational co-located care, Japan

Jacqueline Cassidy is director for practice and Scotland at the national fostering charity The Fostering Network and has more than two decades’ experience in senior positions in UK children's organisations. For her Churchill Fellowship she conducted research on intergenerational co-located care, undertaking visits to Japan, Singapore and the USA in early 2020 just before the Covid-19 pandemic. This article provides a summary of her key findings on shared care approaches in Japan.

UK CONTEXT

Nearly one in four children in Scotland were living in poverty before the pandemic and the figure is expected to rise to 38 per cent by 2030/31 if there is no significant policy change. The experience of too many children in Scotland is one of: lack of food and good nutrition, poor clothing, inadequate housing, and fuel poverty. The educational impact of poverty is clear from an early age with children from higher income families significantly outperforming those from low-income households – by age five, there is a gap of 10 months in problem solving development and of 13 months in vocabulary. We need to consider support strategies for children in the early years to develop skills that their richer counterparts have developed.