O Conselho Tutelar enquanto exossistema na ecologia desenvolvimental de crianças em acolhimento institucional

Abstract

This thesis aimed to analyze the culture of residential care, based on the examination of reports by guardianship counselors contained in reports sent to an residential care service for children in the city of Belém and its possible implications for family reintegration. As specific objectives were: 1) Characterize the children, regarding the reason for shelter, age group, gender, group of siblings, recidivism and reintegration destination, based on documental sources; and 2) Discuss about perception of guardianship counselors about the families of foster children, based on documents produced by them and forwarded to residential care services. This is a research with an analytical-exploratory character and a quantitative-qualitative approach in the treatment of data. Secondary data were used, obtained from documentary sources of the residential care service and the examination of requests made by the Tutelary Councils for the residential care service for children. The results are presented in two axes: the first deals with the data present in the records of the sheltered children with regard to the children's profile, the reception and family reintegration data, while the second axis presents the analysis of the reports of guardianship counselors contained in the requests for children referred to the municipal residential care service, through the Iramuteq software. The results are presented in two axes: the first deals with the data present in the records of the sheltered children with regard to the children's profile, the reception and family reintegration data, while the second axis presents the analysis of the reports of guardianship counselors contained in the requests for children referred to the municipal residential care service, through the Iramuteq software. The main results indicate: With regard to the profile, it was observed that most children are aged less than or equal to 12 months (65.7%), predominantly male (63%) and 11.4% of children they had siblings hosted at the same institution. Among the reasons that led to foster care, abandonment (28.6%), negligence (20.0%), followed by voluntary delivery for adoption (17.1%) and children without a legal guardian appear to be prevalent. Situations of substance abuse by parents or guardians and psychiatric disorders were also mentioned. Considering the origin of the referral of the children to the reception service, the study pointed out that the majority of the demands (71%) come from the Tutelary Council and 37% of the children were rejected in less than 30 days after joining the institution, of these, almost half were disconnected from the service in less than seven days and 17.1% remained in the room for a period that varied between 181 and 360 days. When analyzing who the children lived with before the application of the protective measure, the results showed that 80% of the children lived with their mothers and had the extended family as their destination, predominantly aunts and maternal grandparents. As for the analysis of the reports present in the requests from the Tutelary Council, the general corpus consisted of 14 texts separated into 47 text segments (STs), with the use of 38 STs (80.85%). 1,571 occurrences emerged (words, forms or expression), 367 of which were distinct words and 233 with a single occurrence. The analyzed content was categorized into three classes: 1) Post-Reception Diagnosis Study, 2) Tutelary Counselors Outdated and 3) About Risk and Vulnerability. The report of the guardianship counselors based on the records in the documents pointed to a culture of institutionalization of children, since in most cases the diagnostic study, which is a prerequisite for realization of institutional care, was requested to be carried out after it, as well as such as the use of old terms, which stigmatize and subjectify children and families, pointing to the outdated nature of guardianship counselors, which may suggest an institutionalization that is still in the mold of yesteryear. And yet on the counselors' understanding of risk and vulnerability, which are indirectly related to issues that refer to the social condition of families and other conditions related to them, reinforcing the thesis of the existence, even today, of a culture of institutionalization of children, despite the considerable advances in brazilian legislation. The Tutelary Council as a representation of society constitutes an important exosystem for guaranteeing the rights of children and adolescents, however, continuous training of counselors is necessary to update and deal with the complex issues that involve families, through clarity in cases, aimed at defending the citizenship of children and adolescents, removing any trace of economic, social or cultural discrimination that blames the family, instead of practical actions - referrals and interventions - that understand the social and personal dramas that affect families and more assertive solutions for each of the problems experienced by them that require intervention by the Tutelary Council.