The weaving of the network: among points and spaces. Policies and social programs on youth caring - the street situation in Campinas, Sao Paulo State

THESES

The weaving of the network: among points and spaces. Policies and social programs on youth caring - the street situation in Campinas, Sao Paulo State

Ana Paula Serrata Malfitano

Tese (Doutorado), 2008. Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo. [e-mail]

Keywords: Adolescent. Homeless youth. Public policy. Child advocacy. State

The theme of youth has been built as a sociological category and it opens the debate on the need for the creation of social policies which would drive access to child, teenagers and youth rights, mainly those who come from popular groups. Social policies, understood as "human needs", make interventions which are accorded to or different from the ideas previously set. The proposal is to analyze one of the programs from the City Plan for Childhood and Youth, implemented in Campinas, SP during 2001-2004 term. The Plan was composed of ten thematic programs, from which it was analyzed "Criando Rede de Esperaça" ("Creating Hope Network"), whose target population was boys and girls who live in streets. The program's services network is analyzed from 2001 to 2006, and it is held a discussion on whether there was social-political innovations and changing in life of its users. The investigation procedures were the following: semi-driven interviews with managers from different secretaries which compose the network, with coordinators and technicians, and also with the girls and boys; activity groups with teenagers inside the institutions; and participating observation on Health system facility. Besides that, some teenagers were accompanied in the streets. Life stories from five youths were taken to present both the services and the themes regarding them. It was noticed that the dynamic among actors was set under a tension with understandings not always congruent between institutional objectives and their users' objectives, what has generated little advance on the promotion of rights to this population group. It was pointed out that social policies focus borders on developed actions, marked by the capitalist democratic State's neoliberal political structure, as it was evidenced by the execution of actions which point to individualization of the problems and little advance on the collective understanding and facing. Nevertheless, they also produce a level of caring and attention which constitutes itself as support points to this population. The social policies keep the possibilities of effectively consolidating social-political innovations and they walk to the promotion for rights of youth Brazilians from popular groups. To do so, it was emphasized as the challenge for social actions, among which those on public health, to set innovative and effective practices to the promotion of rights.

Full text avaialable from: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/6/6136/tde-10032009-214921/

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  24 Aug 2012
• Date of issue
  Dec 2009