The current study has the objective of learning and understanding how Community Health Agents conceptualize, develop and perform strategies to counter violence against women attending the Family Health Strategies in a northeastern municipality of Rio Grande do Sul. It is an exploratory research, utilizing a descriptive and qualitative approach, carried out with 35 Community Health Agents. Semi-structured interviews were performed to collect the data, which were analyzed using the thematic model. Conceptions of violence against women are centered around violence as a social construction based on gender inequalities and on violence as having a multifactorial construction. Regarding care practices and interventions to counter violence, the following tools are highlighted: construction of intervention strategies within the staff; forming bonds, listening and dialogue with the women victims of violence; and directing victims to support services. We believe that this study contributes to the visibility of this theme as a need in health care, as well as for the construction of strategies to counter it.
Community health workers; Violence against woman; Health services; Gender of health