What Do You Need to Work in Home-Visit Care Services?

To ensure foreign care workers can provide home-visit care services safely and securely, accepting institutions must fulfill these five requirements:

① Training for Foreign Care Workers

Until foreign care workers can independently provide home-visit care services, accepting institutions must provide training covering:

• Fundamentals of home-visit care services (workflow, basic procedures, privacy protection, harassment prevention, abuse prevention, etc.)
• Daily living support techniques (cooking, cleaning, taking out trash, etc.)
• Communication with clients, families, and neighbors (listening, acceptance, empathy skills, etc.)
• Japanese lifestyle and customs (culture, traditions, customs, manners when visiting homes, etc.)
• Emergency response procedures (contact information, response methods, etc.)

② On-the-Job Training Through Accompanied Visits

To ensure foreign care workers can correctly provide home-visit care services independently, home-visit care supervisors or senior staff members accompany them for a certain period. Starting with observing how service coordinators and senior staff work, the training gradually expands the tasks foreign care workers can perform. Accepting institutions determine the frequency and duration of accompanied visits based on the circumstances of clients and foreign care workers.

③ Confirming Foreign Care Workers’ Intentions and Building Career Paths

Accepting institutions create a “Career Development Plan” together with foreign care workers. The Career Development Plan includes the foreign care worker’s career aspirations, goals, and plans, which are signed and shared by both the foreign care worker and the staff in charge at accepting institutions.

④ Harassment Prevention Measures

In home-visit care services, since care is provided one-on-one with clients, harassment may be difficult to detect. Therefore, accepting institutions must implement the following harassment prevention measures:

What Accepting Institutions Must Do:

• Create and share a manual for preventing harassment
• Clarify the roles of managers and supervisors
• Create and share rules for handling harassment incidents
• Inform clients and their families about these measures
• Establish consultation services for foreign care workers and publicize their availability

⑤ Environmental Improvements Through ICT Utilization

Accepting institutions must use ICT (smartphones, apps, etc.) to create a comfortable working environment for foreign care workers. It’s also important to enable proper responses to unexpected problems at visit sites. ICT makes work easier. It allows immediate contact during emergencies and enables later verification of what happened during incidents.

What Accepting institutions Must Do:

• Create manuals containing emergency contact information and response procedures
• Conduct training for emergency situations
• Establish a system to dispatch other staff to the site during emergencies
• Develop mechanisms to ensure service records and handovers are shared among all staff

Examples of ICT Tools:

• Communication tools: multilingual translation devices, communication apps
• Work efficiency tools: monitoring cameras, recording software (voice input, multilingual translation), intercoms
• Learning tools: Japanese language and care technique learning materials

To work in home-visit care services, foreign care workers must:

① Complete the ” Basic Care Worker Training Course (Shoninsha-Kenshu)”

*For those working in disability welfare services, completion of training specific to each service is required.

② Have at least one year of work experience at a care facility

*Foreign care workers with less than one year of experience who wish to work in home-visit care services must meet these two requirements:
(1) High Japanese language proficiency, such as JLPT N2
(2) For each client, accompanied visits by a home-visit care supervisor or senior staff for the following periods:

• 6 months for clients receiving service once per week
• 3 months for clients receiving service twice per week
• 2 months for clients receiving service three times per week

*If both clients and their families agree, the accompanied visit period can be shortened by using monitoring cameras and other means to maintain constant contact with the office.
*However, to build trust with clients and families and provide services appropriate to each client’s characteristics, accompanied visits must be at least 2 months, and no further shortening of this period is permitted.

When there’s a possibility that foreign care workers will visit clients’ homes to provide care, accepting institutions must provide written explanations to clients and families on the following points and obtain signatures from clients or family members:

Content to Explain:

• Foreign care workers will visit homes
• The care work experience level of the foreign care worker
• ICT tools may be used
• Contact information for the organization

The purpose of the Technical Intern Training Program and Specified Skilled Worker Program is to learn specialized care techniques. Therefore, work must focus on physical care such as assistance with eating, bathing, and toileting. Providing only daily living support such as cleaning, shopping, and cooking is not permitted.

In home-visit care services, cars or motorcycles may be used to travel to clients’ homes. A Japanese driver’s license is required to operate vehicles or motorcycles. Please also follow Japanese traffic laws and observe traffic rules when driving. The Immigration Services Agency website publishes the “Daily Life and Work Guidebook (https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/support/portal/guidebook_all.html).” It contains detailed information about driving in Japan, so please review it.

Organizations commissioned by the Japanese government check whether receiving organizations providing home-visit care services have systems in place to follow the rules. If it’s confirmed that receiving organizations can comply with the rules, a “Compliance Confirmation Certificate (Tekigou-Kakunin-Sho)” is issued to each foreign care worker. Please note that foreign care workers can only actually engage in home-visit care services after the “Compliance Confirmation Certificate (Tekigou-Kakunin-Sho)” has been issued.
Organizations commissioned by the Japanese government visit receiving organizations that have been issued “Compliance Confirmation Certificate (Tekigou-Kakunin-Sho)” and confirm whether rules are actually being followed by interviewing organization managers and foreign care workers. If rules are not being followed, necessary guidance is provided. If problems are still not resolved, the ” Compliance Confirmation Certificate (Tekigou-Kakunin-Sho)” may be revoked.

The Japanese government has established consultation services where foreign care workers can seek help when they encounter problems. These services support various languages so foreign care workers can consult in their native language when they want to discuss something or encounter difficulties while working in home-visit care services.

The Japanese government provides various forms of support to help foreign care workers improve their skills, including support for taking the Basic Care Worker Training Course (Shoninsha-Kenshu) and support for obtaining the nationally certified care worker qualification.