Survey on Camping Opportunities in Social Welfare Situations around Osaka City Area, Japan

Camping is a useful program in Experimental Education. The purpose of this study is to learn about current camping opportunities and conditions for people with disabilities in social welfare settings and camping organizations around Osaka city area, Japan. Camping opportunities and conditions for people with disabilities were examined using a mailed survey of social welfare settings and camping organizations in December 2012. 205 organizations responded to the full survey (a response rate of 43％). The results were 1) 70 organizations provided camping opportunities for people with disabilities from April, 2011 to March, 2012 (34％) 2) 56 organizations provided camping opportunities for people with and without disabilities during the same period. 3) 52 organizations provided camping opportunities for participants with Intellectual Disabilities (74％), 51 organizations provided for participants with Developmental Disorders (73％) during the same periods. 4) 26 organizations provide camp over 20 years (37％) Of the 205 organizations, 135 organizations do not provide camping opportunities for people with disabilities because they have unsuitable facilities. This poses potential health and safety risks for participants, also financial constraints hamper progress recruiting additional carers with the results that many current employees are stressed and they are of the opinion that their workplaces are understaffed. The conclusions were that the above mentioned drawbacks are a challenge for many organizations ; however, there are some positives in the Osaka area. If the therapy can be proven to be effective, the city council will give financial & physical support for those that can’t provide it for themselves. Nevertheless, government support is still inadequate in many areas and that an issue that need to be addressed and researched. This research is supported by “Tokutei Kojin Kenkyuhi” at St. Andrew’s (Momoyama Gakuin) University and the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS).departmental bulletin pape