Learning Objective #1: get knowledge about "the volunteer as a partner of conversation and communication" for the senior citizen support.

Learning Objective #2: know the effect of training program of "the Volunteer as a Partner of Conversation and Communicationfor the Senior Citizens" .

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Japan faces aging society and supporting the senior citizens is one of the most important issues. Training a volunteer as a partner of conversation and communication can be a source of an informal support for promoting the mutual support between the senior citizens and other generations. Current study focused on carrying out a training program of a volunteer as a partner of conversation and communication for senior citizens and examined the changes of the trainees by assessing cognitive appraisal on acting as the volunteer, perceived strain as performing the volunteer, changes or findings on the skill of the volunteer, and perceived skill for acting the volunteer before and after the training program was proceeded. 29 trainees participated to the program through open call recruitment, and the examination was performed by questionnaire survey and a video survey on assessing their conversation and communication skill between September and July 2006. Signature test was managed and the following three changes were found; 1. Trainees got confidence for acting as a volunteer; however, they felt a strain for a participating to the staff meeting and recording their activity, 2. Trainees found out the interpersonal skill can be arranged correspond to the relationship with or the condition of the senior citizen, 3. Trainees got confidence for getting skills as the volunteer. Attendance of this training program seemed to strengthen the source of an informal support of the local inhabitants for supporting the senior citizens to some extent.