The crisis of Welfare State has been contributing to rediscover the family, primary networks and communities as fundamental actors to perform social policies. The family, particularly, has attracted more and more attention of governmental institutions and social scientists for its role of protection, help and care. Actually, there are many proposals of social policies based on the conception of "community care", which aim to hold the community co-responsible for social and health problems. The Brazilian Family Health Program is one of these strategies, whose the main objective is to provide basic health care to families and communities. However, constant changes at the organization of the family, basically in its composition, structure and function, make difficult development of effective policies focused on the family participation. In the light of this context, it is important to design adequate strategies to promote a continuing education process for health professionals, which could complement their knowledge in familiar and community approaches. Thus, social policy makers have opportunity to introduce innovative and creative ideas at community level, which could valorize the role of informal care, specially, that delivered by relatives, in order to integrate these activities to them carried out by the institutional care providers.
Family; Family health program; Informal care; Community care; Social policies