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, the front line is the local 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, so the starting point is to look up the catchment center for that exact district rather than calling any center in the city. Each one 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 practical points specific to Yokohama. First, the support centers keep wide hours for this kind of office, roughly Monday to Saturday in the daytime with shorter hours on Sundays and holidays, but the city asks you to phone ahead before visiting rather than walking in. Second, the centers and the day-to-day services are spread across 18 wards, so a family managing care from Sakae, Kohoku, or Naka is each working with a different local center and a different set of nearby providers. Confirm the ward first; 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, a general-purpose window useful for orientation and translation help, but not a care specialist. The support center is where the actual care planning happens, and that conversation is usually in Japanese.

This is the gap JCC fills. We help you identify the correct ward-level support center for your parent's address, prepare for the first consultation, and translate what the care manager (ケアマネジャー) is proposing. In-person support is assessed by location and scope, while planning, preparation, and family reporting can usually begin online for families living overseas.

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.