Yokohama is part of the Kanagawa area where Social Welfare Corporation Shinkou Fukushikai (社会福祉法人 伸こう福祉会) has direct welfare-sector roots. The corporation operates elderly-care services under the Cross Heart name in the city, including in Sakae Ward (栄区).

The care itself runs on Japan's national long-term care insurance (kaigo hoken), the same system used across the country. What differs city to city is the first door you knock on. In Yokohama that door is the community comprehensive support center (地域包括支援センター).

These are not standalone offices. The city places them inside community care plazas (地域ケアプラザ) and a number of special nursing homes. The center that handles your case is fixed by the address where your parent lives. Look up the catchment center for that exact district rather than calling any center in the city.

Each center is staffed by professionals who handle the first assessment, explain the system and start a care-needs certification (要介護認定) application. Two further points are specific to Yokohama.

First, the hours are wider than most offices of this kind: roughly Monday to Saturday in the daytime, with shorter hours on Sundays and holidays. The city still asks you to phone ahead rather than walk in.

Second, the centers and the day-to-day services are spread across 18 wards. A family managing care from Sakae works with a different local center and a different set of nearby providers than one in Kohoku or Naka. Confirm the ward first, because everything downstream depends on it.

For a foreign family, the language gap usually appears at this first contact. Kanagawa Prefecture operates a foreign-resident consultation service covering many languages including English. It helps with orientation and translation, but it is not a care specialist. The actual care planning happens at the support center, and that conversation is usually in Japanese.

This is the gap JCC fills. We identify the correct ward-level support center for your parent's address, prepare you for the first consultation and translate what the care manager (ケアマネジャー) is proposing. Planning, preparation and family reporting can begin online, and in-person support is available here as anywhere in Japan.

Getting medical care

To find a clinic or hospital that can see your parent in English or another language, start with Medical Information Net, nicknamed Navii (医療情報ネット ナビイ), run by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. In April 2024 it replaced the separate search systems each prefecture used to run, so every prefecture's medical institutions are now searched there. The site has an English interface, and its detailed search can filter by foreign-language support. Language details are reported by each institution, so phone ahead to confirm.

The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) keeps an English page called "Guide for when you are feeling ill". Its medical institution search filters by prefecture, language and department, and the page explains how a visit to a Japanese hospital works. It is written for visitors, but the steps are the same for a parent who lives here.

Kanagawa is covered by #7119. The prefecture runs the Kanagawa emergency consultation center (かながわ救急相談センター) across the whole prefecture, 24 hours a day, every day. A nurse helps decide whether to call an ambulance or see a doctor now, and staff can name a medical institution that is open. Telephone interpretation covers 14 languages, including English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Vietnamese.

From a landline with a 042 area code, #7119 connects to Tokyo instead, so dial 045-232-7119 or 045-523-7119. If the situation is clearly an emergency, call 119.

Related guidance

Official local references

Local specifics on this page are drawn from official sources:

See all areas we cover. Local details vary by ward and change over time; our editorial policy explains how we source and correct content.