Occupational therapy and social education: a four-decade follow-up of the institutional trajectory of adolescents and young people

Abstract

The Adolescent Guidance Center of Campinas (COMEC), a civil society organization, has adopted, as pillars of assistance since its foundation in 1980, the guarantee of the fundamental principles of human rights and the promotion of social education as a tool of intervention and transformation. Its history of providing open-setting follow-up for adolescent and young offenders and their families precedes the assumptions and guidelines of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA) of the Unified Social Assistance System and the National Socio-Educational Assistance System. COMEC has become a reference in the municipality of Campinas, state of São Paulo, Brazil in the execution of socio-educational measures of Assisted Liberty (AL) and Provision of Services to the Community (PSC) through the development of solid work in the field of social assistance. This study aims to present the trajectory of occupational therapy at COMEC from 1984 to 2022 through a university teaching-extension partnership conducted by the Occupational Therapy Course of the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas. Since then, occupational therapists have composed the technical teams of AL and PSC as essential reference professionals to develop this work, as well as assumed management activities. Occupational therapy has contributed, in a powerful and diversified way, to offer a follow-up to adolescents, young people, and their families, and has accumulated experiences in the execution of socio-educational measures that can contribute to its repertoires of action.

Keywords:
Occupational Therapy; Adolescent; Social Vulnerability

Resumo

O Centro de Orientação ao Adolescente de Campinas (COMEC), uma organização da sociedade civil, tem adotado, como pilares de atendimento, desde sua fundação em 1980, a garantia dos princípios fundamentais dos direitos humanos e o fomento da socioeducação como ferramenta de intervenção e transformação. Sua história de atendimento em meio aberto de adolescentes e jovens em conflito com a lei e suas famílias precede as premissas e diretrizes do Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (ECA), do Sistema Único de Assistência Social e do Sistema Nacional de Atendimento Socioeducativo. O COMEC se tornou uma referência no município de Campinas, SP, Brasil na execução das medidas socioeducativas de Liberdade Assistida (LA) e de Prestação de Serviços à Comunidade (PSC), por meio do desenvolvimento de um trabalho sólido no campo da assistência social. Este estudo tem a finalidade de apresentar a trajetória da atuação da terapia ocupacional no COMEC de 1984 a 2022, por meio de uma parceria de ensino-extensão universitária realizada pelo Curso de Graduação em Terapia Ocupacional da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, SP. Desde então, terapeutas ocupacionais têm composto as equipes técnicas de LA e PSC como profissionais de referência essenciais para o desenvolvimento desse trabalho, bem como assumido atividades de gestão. A terapia ocupacional tem contribuído de modo potente e diversificado para a oferta de acompanhamento a adolescentes, jovens e famílias e tem acumulado experiências na execução de medidas socioeducativas que podem contribuir para seus repertórios de ação.

Palavras-chave:
Terapia Ocupacional; Adolescente; Vulnerabilidade Social

Introduction

This experience report presents the work of occupational therapy with adolescents, young people, and their families at the Adolescent Guidance Center of Campinas (COMEC) over 38 years. Addressing the trajectory of a service for almost four decades demands situating its interlocution with different social policies and legislation that have been implemented according to the country’s sociopolitical situation.

COMEC is a civil society organization (CSO) founded in 1980 under the National Policy for Welfare of Minors (Fundação Nacional do Bem Estar do Menor, 1973) and the 2nd Code of Minors (Brasil, 1979), which implemented the Irregular Situation Doctrine (Mendez & Costa, 1994) and defined measures applicable by the judicial authority that provided, in addition to Assisted Liberty (AL), “custody in an educational, occupational, psycho-pedagogical, hospital, psychiatric, or other appropriate institution” (Brasil, 1979). This Doctrine institutionalized mainly children and adolescents from popular segments. In the state of São Paulo, this occurred on the premises of the State Foundation for the Welfare of Minors (FEBEM) (Trassi, 2006). Despite being created in this historical context, COMEC assumed a counter-hegemonic orientation that aimed to produce a resistance movement to that doctrine. Thus, COMEC established action proposals—which exist to the present day—based on solid values of ensuring rights, with the primacy of avoiding institutionalization, guaranteeing the fundamental principles of human rights, and cultivating social education as a tool of intervention and transformation. In this sense, COMEC initially offered open-setting follow-up programs for adolescent and young offenders, complying with the AL measure, as well as their families.

With the promulgation of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA) (Brasil, 1990), in the context of restructuring post-constitutional social policies, COMEC facilitated dialogue with the assumptions of the new legislation. ECA, which was based on the Guidelines of Total Protection, defined legal and political devices to ensure the rights of children and adolescents and established guidelines for planning and implementing socio-educational measures (SEM). After modifying some of its provisions, the current version includes family social guidance and support, open-setting socio-educational support, family placement, institutional shelter, provision of services to the community (PSC), assisted liberty, and hospitalization, among others. In line with the assumptions of ECA, COMEC began to carry out various proposals: community care for children, adolescents, and their families; Education for/through Work projects, according to the Apprentice Law (Brasil, 2000); execution of the SEM of AL and, since 2007, of PSC. Currently, through a collaboration with the Municipal Secretary of Social Assistance of Campinas, COMEC is executing the SEM of LA and PSC, which have been supported by the regulations of the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS) (Brasil, 2011) and the National System of Socio-educational Assistance (SINASE) (Brasil, 2012). Interlocution with the justice system, in particular with the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Child and Youth Court of Campinas, has been a relationship of continuous construction, necessary for quality work. Likewise, combining its execution with the National Social Assistance Policy has enabled the expansion of dialogues with the intersectoral network.

COMEC is composed of a team of 25 professionals: four social workers, 10 psychologists, seven occupational therapists, a pedagogue, a social scientist, and two social educators. There are separate teams and units dedicated to the execution of the SEM of AL and PSC. The teamwork has adopted a transdisciplinary organization since the 1990s, which overcomes the model of care by a professional category and enables the construction of a common work to link adolescents and young people to the proposals offered. This work has dialogued with the theoretical-methodological perspectives of each time. Initially, it was based on preventive ideas whose speeches, practices, and policies affirmed the importance of community programs to prevent processes of social marginalization, such as the Integration Plan for Community Underprivileged Minors implemented in Brazilian municipalities (Galheigo, 1996). With the re-democratization of Brazilian society, the concept of total protection and affirmation of the rights of children and young people began to guide the protection programs and the SEM developed by COMEC. Currently, in addition to these guidelines, the work at COMEC has been based on social education, as proposed by the National System of Socio-educational Assistance (Brasil, 2012) and on the contributions of Freire (2019), Costa (1997), and Bell Hooks (2017). The work uses the concepts of city periphery as a living territory of Malvasi (2011) and Broide & Broide (2016) and different perspectives of family and group care from the professional education of the team members.

Regarding the contributions of occupational therapy, it is worth noting that the experience of COMEC contributed to problematizing the practice and theory produced by the teaching, research, and extension university projects developed by the Occupational Therapy undergraduate course at Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (PUC-Campinas) from 1980 to 2005, as well as to elaborate the theories and methodologies developed by the Metuia Project (Galheigo, 2016; Barros et al., 2011). The execution of SEM at COMEC has been in dialogue with contributions and experiences of occupational therapy in the social field and its action at SUAS. In summary, the practice is based on the concept that adolescents and young people are subjects of rights and on the importance of understanding their living conditions to build an Individual Assistance Plan (IAP)¹. This practice problematizes the offense, identifying mainly its roots in the harassment of drug trafficking, which exploits the work of children and adolescents, and in other illegal contexts; values the use of group workshops, considering these activities as elements of culture that produce meaning, self-discovery, validation, and belonging for the subjects; seeks to promote ways of coexistence, social participation, critical reflection, and autonomy and to favor the construction of networks of affection, support, and attention, involving the family, school, community, and social and health services; collaborates to expand occupational therapy in the social field in its work with Social Assistance, in the sense, brought byAlmeida et al. (2012), to reaffirm the ethical-political commitment to socially vulnerable populations for their social inclusion, participation, and production of goods and values.

COMEC has a history of publicizing its practices at events and publications (Centro de Orientação ao Adolescente de Campinas, 2018), and so do its occupational therapists (Clareto & Galheigo, 2003; Delorenzo et al., 2003; Galheigo et al., 2010; Danelutti, 2010; Vedovello, 2010; Vedovello & Galheigo, 2021; Santamaria & Almeida, 2021). However, the historical trajectory of occupational therapy in this CSO had not yet been published. The participation of occupational therapists working at COMEC in graduate studies programs that have produced two studies on AL, two on Professional learning (PL), and one on PSC, as well as their engagement in the “Community of Practices in Occupational Therapy at SUAS” created in 2020, demonstrated the absence of this historical record, and thus motivated its preparation.

Method

This is a qualitative, historical, descriptive experience report that proposes to carry out a narrative of the experiences of occupational therapists who have worked at COMEC for over 38 years. After outlining the organization on a timeline until 2022 and obtaining a sequence of testimonies, the narratives were organized individually and then aggregated into a single text, which was revised and resized.

Aiming to ensure the maintenance of the historical testimony of almost four decades, descriptive narratives were chosen, which “are dedicated to describing the situation and its context, [...] without explicit justifications” (Marcolino & Mizukami, 2008, p. 544). Reflective aspects combined with policies and the literature were presented in the introduction.

Occupational therapy at COMEC: an outline

Occupational therapy services at COMEC began in 1984 through an agreement with the undergraduate course of occupational therapy at PUC-Campinas to offer an internship in social occupational therapy. COMEC hired its first occupational therapist in 1992. Since then, 15 occupational therapists (Table 1) have contributed to the development of the work at this CSO, and seven of them are currently part of its technical teams: four at AL, one at PSC, one in the general coordination, and one in the coordination of the PSC. Three of them worked in the EW program, created in 1992 and later renamed PL program, which is now extinct.

Table 1
Occupational therapists hired by COMEC, their work periods, and institutional engagement.

Identification	Work Period	Program	Participation in Management
G. A. D. S.	08/1992 - 10/2003	AL	X
B. M. S.	03/1996 - 12/2019	AL	X Currently on the board of directors of the CSO
L. M. S.	12/2001 - Present	AL	X Currently at the general coordination of the CSO
T. C. F. T.	01/2002 - 04/2002	AL
L. F. C.	01/2003 - 03/2013	EW/PL	X
M. M. A.	03/2003 - 06/2006	EW/PL
T. H. Y. R.	2004 - 2012 2014 - Present	EW/PL/ PSC	X
B. A. T.	2004	AL
D. P. M.	2005 - 2008 - educator in the EW/PL program 03/2008 - Present	AL
A.J.S.V.	11/2007 - Present	PSC	X Currently at the technical coordination of the CSO
U. C. D.	08/2008 - 11/2019	AL/PSC
S. N. R. S. L.	03/2015 - 11/2017	AL
A.M.	06/2015 - Present	AL
N. F. M.	01/2022 - Present	AL
A. B. F. A.	04/2022 - Present	AL

• Source: Internal documents of the organization. AL - Assisted Liberty; EW/PL - Education for/through Work/Professional Learning; PSC - Provision of Services to the Community.

Occupational therapists participate in the daily organization and follow-up of adolescents, young people, and their families, favoring the understanding of the use of activity in the socio-educational field as a mediator of processes full of senses and meanings. Occupational therapists have held coordination positions regularly (Table 1). Coordination by occupational therapists has provided humanized processes in the actions offered to COMEC users, such as in the team’s relationship, helping to conduct networking outside the institution. Since 2014, occupational therapists have represented COMEC at the Municipal Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents (CMDCA) in the preparation and assessment of the construction of the socio-educational assistance policy and, in 2019, two occupational therapists were appointed members of the Managing Committee of the Municipal Socio-educational Assistance System (SIMASE) for the implementation of the Municipal Plan for Socio-educational Assistance.

The participation of interns occurs through agreements with Social Work, Psychology, and Occupational Therapy undergraduate courses. It is worth highlighting that the agreements for offering internships with occupational therapy courses at PUC-Campinas, São Camilo University, Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), and University of São Paulo (USP) have been important to expand the offer of group interventions.

The trajectory of the work of occupational therapists in the AL, EW/PL, and PSC programs over 38 years, the necessary adjustments as of 2020 during the period of social distancing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing initiatives since 2018 are described below.

The Beginning of Occupational Therapy at COMEC: A Teaching and Extension Project of PUC-Campinas (1984-1986)

The agreement between the undergraduate occupational therapy course at PUC-Campinas and COMEC, established in 1984, included not only offering internships for 3rd and 4^th-year students but also the presence of a teacher, 28 h a week, for implementing the occupational therapy service. Thus, from 1984 to 1986, the teacher and the interns were part of the COMEC team, participating in meetings and providing assistance on different fronts. The first front consisted of community work at a Social Center in the Boa Vista neighborhood, conceived and carried out by a psychologist and a social worker, through collective assistance to children and young people from this community that included playful, craft, and sports activities. These collective assistances allowed children and adolescents to live together (after-school hours) and became a powerful resource for listening to and learning about complex individual and family demands, mediating conflicts, and referring the children/adolescents/families to follow-up services at the network or the COMEC headquarters.

The second front consisted of individual occupational therapy sessions for adolescents under AL carried out by the teacher at the headquarters of the Juvenile Court. In 1985, occupational therapy consultations with adolescents in the community and under AL began to occur primarily in groups, conducted in a room, equipped with materials, equipment, and furniture, assigned by COMEC for the occupational therapy sector. This was the beginning of the group workshops, which were later solidified as the institution’s service strategy, becoming a differential in the socio-educational work offered by COMEC, as shown below. In 1987, the teacher assumed university management activities and later left the CSO to pursue her doctorate, interrupting the agreement. The agreement was resumed from 1993 to 2005, with daily monitoring of interns carried out by COMEC therapists with weekly supervision by a teacher.

The Role of Occupational Therapy in Assisted Liberty (AL) (1992-2022)

A new phase of occupational therapy at COMEC began with the direct hiring of an occupational therapist in 1992. Since then, there has been a greater investment by the team in interventions in informal living spaces that have resulted in institutional improvement in cultural, artistic, playful, and recreational themes. Investments were also made in care to setting up institutional spaces based on stimulating the potential and respecting the uniqueness of adolescents and young people.

In the early 1990s, new partnerships with municipal actors and services were established, resulting in the offer of cooking, art therapy, and digital inclusion groups with the support of an information technology professional, as well as a musical group with the support of a local percussionist. Thus, while complying with the socio-educational measure, it was possible to experience a variety of new opportunities and learn new skills. Some of these activities included adolescents and their families in the role of monitors in actions open to the community developed in the so-called “Week of Encounters”. The apex of this practice occurred when the gates were opened to partners and non-offenders who freely attended the CSO. On that occasion, the consultations were considered extra activities to comply with the socio-educational measure, and even without the compulsory bond imposed by the measure, the adolescents’ adherence was massive.

These group experiences were understood as an important tool in the program, which began to invest in this type of care, with emphasis on the group of young mothers and girls-started in the mid-1990s-that became a systematized action of occupational therapists in partnership with other professionals that happens until today. The technical team has endeavored to maintain differentiated spaces for the female population, not in the sense of excluding the participation of the male universe, but to allow the strengthening of female issues and reflections on gender violence, especially in the participation of women in the male hierarchy of the world of offense.

In 1999, COMEC participated in the documentary called Girls who are Women, which is part of a project called Children in the Countryside: Education, Law, and Work, coordinated by its occupational therapy sector. These actions have helped adolescents to reflect on the violence they have experienced so that they can expand their possibilities of choices beyond gender identity issues. These choices may imply the relationship with their partners, the resolution of conflicts without the use of violence, the decision not to use drugs during pregnancy, and/or not to take responsibility for their partners’ offenses.

Family assistance to adolescents and young people at COMEC has always been a premise of its actions since its foundation, based on family partnership in the socio-educational process of their children through social exchanges, their own life experiences, and the strengthening of intrafamily bonds. In 2001, group family assistance began through the project “Occupational therapy workshop: a living space for activities”. This project allowed space for experimentation through activities, mainly expressive ones, which aimed to strengthen the protective capacity of the adolescents’ families and enrich and expand their occupational and experiential repertoire. A group of legal guardians was held with mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and stepmothers of adolescents and young people. A toy library was offered to ensure a playful space for the children while their mothers got together. The project’s actions assisted with acceptance and listening and, as part of the meeting process, there was a circle around the snack table to encourage exchanges.

Later, these women decided to start an autonomous income generation experience and began to produce, sell, and make decisions with the support of an occupational therapist from the CSO. Initially, they worked with the biscuit technique and sales in external spaces. Years later, in 2008, the family service group continued through sewing activities - the birthplace of what is today the Maria Retalho (Rag Mary) project. This project continues to this day and is composed of women who are family members of adolescents who have previously been assisted by COMEC. Currently, they develop patchwork activities, selling their products in internal and external bazaars to foster the self-sustainability of the project and entrepreneurship.

Between 2005 and 2008, COMEC carried out the “Desafios” (Challenges) project in partnership with the Telefônica Foundation. The world of work was the theme developed through operative reflection groups, professional training courses (mechanics, aesthetics, and information technology), and solidarity economy workshops (cooking and papier-mâché). The construction of mamulengo puppets was part of the repertoire. The adolescents created characters and then a spontaneous theater play was staged in partnership with local artists from the subdistrict of Joaquim Egídio.

Recently, some projects directly prepared, executed, and coordinated by occupational therapy with the teams stand out. The “Vidas em outras Cores” (Lives in other Colors) project - carried out in 2013 with the support of Banco do Brasil, aimed to develop the concept of culture and art with access to cultural assets such as graffiti and music. The “Riscando o Risco” (Scribbling) (2019-2021) project, which was selected to compose the report of the National Diagnosis on the Open-setting Socio-educational Assistance Policy - World View, used the signifier of tattoos made by the adolescents to dialogue about the violence they have experienced.

From 2012 to 2020, occupational therapy was part of the program’s management and remains the reference for assisting adolescents and young people, individually or in groups, comprising the various group offers (cooking group, girls’ space, activities group, among others).

Aiming to ensure technical follow-up, the IAPs built with the adolescents and their legal guardians are the guidelines for individual and, subsequently, group actions. Several projects and activities are implemented to create and improve spaces for expression, learning, and reflection during the process of socio-educational measures. In this sense, partnerships with the intersectoral network of services are needed to carry out complementary actions regarding schooling, health care, and professionalization, among other aspects, thus building a new life project for adolescents.

The Role of Occupational Therapy in Professional Learning (PL) (1992-2012)

The Education for/through Work (EW) program began in 1992 to follow up and include socially vulnerable young people into the labor market with an initial partnership with Caixa Econômica Federal and, later, with other companies, respecting their labor rights and developmental conditions. With the normative changes of Law No. 10.097/2000 (Brasil, 2000), which regularizes the apprenticeship contract for adolescents aged ≥14, it was renamed the Professional Learning (PL) program. As a result of the expansion of this project, three occupational therapists were hired to follow up the adolescents in their work and schooling experiences through individual and group sessions, as well as guide their families and contact partner companies.

The adolescents were followed up in groups, offering individual assistance when necessary. The premise was to accompany their everyday life and difficulties, initiating them (or not) in professional learning activities, as well as to be a space where they could share their experiences of being young workers. Different activities and techniques were used in the groups - role-playing, group dynamics, and craft activities, which facilitated the communication of ideas and reflections. The program ended in 2012 as a result of institutional reorganization. These 20 years of experience contributed to disseminating this practice in AL and PSC socio-educational measures.

The Role of Occupational Therapy in the Provision of Services to the Community (PSC) (2007-2022)

In Campinas, COMEC gained visibility in the trajectory of work with adolescents and young people and became a reference in the execution of the AL socio-educational measure. As a result, it received an invitation from the then Municipal Secretary of Citizenship, Labor, and Social Inclusion to carry out the PSC socio-educational measure. In 2007, COMEC prepared a specific project for this measure based on its work experience with this measure and the legal foundations of ECA (Brasil, 1990), SUAS (Brasil, 2011), and SINASE (Brasil, 2012).

Occupational therapy has been part of the technical team since the beginning of the program, legitimizing the profession as fundamental for socio-educational work. At the PSC, occupational therapists have been working to assist adolescents and young people through empathetic listening, which fosters the understanding of their everyday life, and activities such as mediation to develop their potential. Individual, group, and home interventions are conducted aiming to weave support networks that enable the achievement of the IAP, the guarantee of rights, and the constitution of a new life project. In this trajectory, it is also worth mentioning that, since 2012, an occupational therapist has held a management position at the PSC unit.

The Collective PSC methodological proposal developed by COMEC focuses on the group modality, promotion of protagonism, social participation, and citizenship of adolescents, with implications for their collective work and potential. Between 2007 and 2013, pre-established group activities were provided through fixed partnerships. In 2014, there was a reformulation of this methodology based on the collaborative and participatory construction of actions to be carried out with the adolescents in their territory. In this sense, there was greater relevance of collective and territorial work, with group work, territorial action, and family support as central axes.

Some projects stood out: in 2011 and 2012, “Captaining images, revisiting stories” and “Revealing life”, which offered photography workshops that resulted in the production of two photo-illustrative books; in 2013, “Re-signifying the World of Work”, with the support of the Foundation of Assistance Entities of Campinas (FEAC), which held workshops on the world of work and the tie-dye technique, as well as systematized activities for continued actions in SEM, renamed “Re-signify” project; in 2016, the game “Myths and Truths” was created; in 2018, the “City in Flow” project, both to work with information about SEM playfully. It is also noteworthy that the readjustment of the methodology enabled advances in the diversity of partnerships established in the territories of origin of the adolescents, as well as in the activities performed as the provision of services, e.g., revitalization of spaces and several workshops on graffiti, fanzines, competitions, vegetable gardens, creation of games, customization, among others.

Group activities and assistance with adolescents and young people have been a resource used in socio-educational work that enables the formation of bonds, the awakening interests and potentialities, the expression of reading the world, and the critical understanding of their everyday life. An example of an activity developed as a PSC was the group’s choice to carry out this activity in the school where the adolescent who suggested the partnership had conflicts with teachers and other students. The young people identified with the situation and the whole PSC process was thought of by the group with the proposal to paint graffiti on the school entrance wall depicting the image of a tree of thoughts, thus proposing the importance of exchange and learning. In this context, it was possible to re-signify relations with the school through the activity developed to provide services to the community. For the adolescent and the group, the process allowed the experience of changing their social position in the school community.

The Socio-educational Measures of AL and PSC During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2020-2021)

With the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in Brazil in March 2020, the implementation of AL and PSC measures underwent changes in the service routine because of the requirement of social distancing that prevented in-person activities but encouraged the COMEC team to continue the planned actions, although with other methodological strategies and purposes. The Court of Justice suspended the Al and PSC socio-educational measures from March to August 2020 and March 2020 to September 2021, respectively. In the initial phase of the pandemic, only emergencies were attended to in person, with individual and group actions being adapted to maintain the bond with the adolescents and their families and offer preventive guidance against the disease. The activities were adapted through videos, the delivery of material kits, and technological interactions. The service process became longer, reflective, and descriptive; initially, the activity was carried out remotely, and then composed the service via a communication application. Thus, actions were (re)created by the team, and practices and experiences emerged, which demonstrated a good interlocution between the adolescents and their SEM.

During this period, two projects deserve to be highlighted: “Quarencenas (Scenes of quarentine): a portrait of social isolation”, which used everyday scenes photographed by the young people as a resource for dialogue about conflicts and situations during social distancing, and “Pot of expression”, which aimed to create of audiovisual content, mobilizing the production of cooking recipes by the adolescents and their families with the delivery of kits of ingredients for cooking at home, with subsequent inclusion of this experience in the agenda in the virtual service.

COMEC Today - Building the Future (2018-2022)

The ongoing initiatives with the participation of occupational therapists seek to bring critical elaboration on offenses, police violence, drug trafficking, and child labor. Since 2018, COMEC has sought to expand its fronts of action to—based on accumulated technical experience—develop methodological tools to offer assistance and training in services and products in the themes and purposes of its specificity. Initiatives included the creation of an interactive board game—“Dichavando (Crumbling): a game about marijuana and youth”—aimed at informing, reflecting, and producing narratives about drug use. Another initiative was the development of the “Siege Method”, which consisted of a methodological strategy to train professionals on the topic of drug trafficking as child labor. In 2020, through funding from FEAC, the “Sintonizando na TransformaAção (Tuning into Transformation)” project began to train adolescents and young people (post-compliance with the SEM) as social mobilizers through communication tools and technological resources such as podcasts, music, and documentaries. In 2021, the “QualificAção para o Trabalho (Work Qualification)” project, funded by the CMDCA, began to expand the repertoire of young people about the world of work through workshops and the funding of courses in the area of animation mechanics and movies.

Conclusion

COMEC has become a reference in the execution of the socio-educational measures (SEM) of Assisted Liberty (AL) and Provision of Services to the Community (PSC) in the municipality of Campinas with the development of work that, for almost four decades, stands out for the diversity of its approaches with adolescents, young people, and their families, for the technical competence and creativity of its actions, for the investment in spaces of technical supervision for the teams, and for the complementary and innovative projects developed. COMEC’s AL and PSC teams have gone through social and regulatory changes that have leveraged the assessment of their actions, replacing their practices according to the changes foreseen in the legislation, such as ECA, SINASE, and SUAS.

Occupational therapists have participated in the actions developed in 38 of the 42 years of existence of this Civil Society Organization through a powerful and diversified set of action strategies that can contribute to the repertoire of occupational therapy practice in the social field, SEM, and in the scope of SUAS. This experience report presented a descriptive narrative of the historical trajectory and the transformations of the strategies used in this long period. It is expected that future studies can theoretically and conceptually deepen and dialogize the specific experiences described here.

• 1
  The IAP is an instrument for planning and following up socio-educational actions carried out in partnership with adolescents and their legal guardians with a focus on developing future life projects. Constituted from the life history of the adolescent, it has a dynamic dimension permeated by social, economic, cultural, political, and personal conditions, subject to changes in its goals in the face of changes and eventualities in everyday life. The IAP is included in chapter IV of SINASE (Brasil, 2012).
• How to cite: Vedovello, A. J. S., Santamaria, L. M., Said, G. A. D., Rosa, T. H. Y., & Galheigo, S. M. (2023). Occupational therapy and social education: a four-decade follow-up of the institutional trajectory of adolescents and young people. Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional, 31(spe), e3396. https://doi.org/10.1590/2526-8910.ctoRE259933962

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Edited by

Guest Editor

Profa. Dra. Iara Falleiros Braga

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 July 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  10 Aug 2022
• Reviewed
  19 Aug 2022
• Reviewed
  03 Feb 2023
• Accepted
  09 Mar 2023