MULTIPROFESSIONAL TEAMS: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITES REGARDING PRIORITIES DEFINED BY EDUCATIONAL POLICIES

ABSTRACT

Based on the experience of work carried out in a multidisciplinary team, in the Public Basic Education Network in the Municipality of São Paulo, the text proposes a reflection on the actions of these professionals from an institutional perspective, in supporting teaching work, in recognizing the school education practices and the relationships that are established in this space. It seeks to identify the challenges and possibilities of this work, taking into account intra-school and extra-school factors as a basis for interventions, reflecting school complaints and excluding any practice of pathologizing and psychologizing life.

Keywords:
education and inclusion; multidisciplinary team; network work

RESUMO

A partir da experiência do trabalho realizado em uma equipe multiprofissional na Rede Pública de Educação Básica no Município de São Paulo, o texto propõe uma reflexão sobre as ações desses profissionais por meio de uma perspectiva institucional, no apoio ao trabalho docente, no reconhecimento das práticas de educação escolar e nas relações que se estabelecem nesse espaço. Procura identificar os desafios e possibilidades desse trabalho, levando em conta os fatores intraescolares e extraescolares como base nas intervenções, refletindo sobre a queixa escolar e excluindo qualquer prática de patologização e psicologização da vida.

Palavras-chave:
educação e inclusão; equipe multiprofissional; trabalho em rede

RESUMEN

A partir de la experiencia de la labor realizada en un equipo multiprofesional, en la Red Pública de Educación Básica en el Municipio de São Paulo, en el texto se propone una reflexión sobre las acciones de esos profesionales a partir de una perspectiva institucional, en el apoyo a la labor docente, en el reconocimiento de las prácticas de educación escolar y en las relaciones que se establecen en ese espacio. Busca identificar los desafíos y posibilidades de esa labor, llevando en cuenta los factores intra escolares y extraescolares como base en las intervenciones, reflejando la queja escolar y excluyendo cualquier práctica de patologización y psicologización de la vida.

Palabras clave:
educación e inclusión; equipo multiprofesional; trabajo en red

INTODUCTION

In the last few decades, there has been a lot of discussion on the expectations regarding psychology interventions and social assistance in the field of education, especially concerning different ideological, conceptual, and practical positions. In this sense, the present article shares an experience that intends to provoke and contribute to dialogues and reflections on this exercise. Specialized in psychopedagogy and special education, the author of this article is a professor and pedagogue with over 30 years of experience classroom activities, pedagogical coordination, administration, and educational orientation in public and private institutions. The author’s trajectory comprehends the human education process as a complex phenomenon that involves cognitive, emotional, organic, psychosocial, and cultural aspects, something that challenges any attempts at explanation based on a single scientific discourse. School is portrayed as a powerful space for the construction of knowledge and for the protection of fundamental human rights such as the principle of equality and freedom. From this perspective, in the ears from 2015 to 2017, the author participated, in collaboration with a multi-professional team, in the implantation and implementation of an educational public policy for the municipality of São Paulo: Núcleo de Apoio e Acompanhamento para a Aprendizagem (NAAPA), or Nucleus of Support and Assistance for Learning. Instituted by decision no. 6.566, from 2014, the nucleus had the objective to provide solutions for students who were going through difficulty in their schooling process, social vulnerability, and other issues.

In the Municipal Bureau of Education, teamwork was intense, with support in important formation themes¹ and the challenge to build, with the teams that composed the nuclei of the 13 Diretorias Regionais (DREs), or Regional Directories, spaces for interlocution, collective studies, reflexive and theoretical arguments regarding the demands reported by the school teams. The work resulted, in a collaborative way, in the production of important documents², aiming at the consolidation of the service with orientation and actions at schools. The teams were constituted by a coordinator, a psychologist, two psychopedagogues, and an educational technical assistant. As a psychopedagogue, in the coordination of the team, in the Campo Limpo territory, a southern district in São Paulo, respecting the skills and the characteristics of each one, the author’s objective was to promote actions aiming at reflection, integration, personal contribution, the collaboration of all participants for the development of work that is committed to the full protection of the rights of babies, children, young people and adults. In the occasion, the team was provided with consultancy. In Campo Limpo, this support was realized by Valéria C. Braunstein,¹³ who, with important contributions, dialogued and reflected on actions during the whole process.

It was a formidable challenge to plan and organize the work in order to provide solutions to demands while taking into consideration the collectiveness that composed the school community. It is a territory with continental dimensions and that is quite diverse in its characteristics, providing assistance to five districts with over 400 school units including direct and indirect collaborators, 8 Centros Educacionais Unificados (CEUs), or Unified Educational Centers, approximately 7.000 educators and over 100 thousand students. The support of other teams of the DRE was fundamental, especially of the Regional Director, who was always present in the dialogues and was a real partner in actions, and the multi-disciplinarian team, which was part of the Inclui⁴ Program and operated in the Centro de Formação e Acompanhamento A Inclusão (CEFAI), or Center of Formation and Support to Inclusion.

The first action of the team was to realize a survey on the number of schools and the introduce the NAAPA to all school units. In this first meeting, the proposal was to pay close attention to some important matters regarding expectations in this network support. At a second moment, the team organized itself in order to articulate and strengthen the network of protection, mapping all services: Centros de Referência em Assistência Social (CRAS), or Centers of Reference in Social Assistance, Centros de Referência Especializado de Assistência Social (CREAS), or Centers of Specialized Reference for Social Assistance, Centros de Atenção Psicossocial (CAPS), or Centers of Psychosocial Attention, Unidades Básicas de Saúde (UBS), or Basic Health Units, Núcleos de Apoio à Saúde da Família (NASF), or Nuclei of Support for Family Health, Serviços de Medidas Socioeducativas em meio aberto (MSE), or Services for Socioeducational Measures in open environment, Conselhos Tutelares, or Tutelage Councils, Núcleos de Prevenção à violência (NPV), or Nuclei of Violence Prevention, Centros da Juventude, da Criança e Adolescente, or Centers for Youth, Children and Adolescents, Fábricas de Cultura, or Culture Factories, Non-governmental organizations, collective projects, social projects, and so on. Our presence in these spaces led us to get to know professionals and identify, in this composition, people that could get involved in the actions in the school communities. The meetings included listening, assistance, empathy, and attention in decision-making.

Another important movement was the use of graphics in order to organize data, which reached the nucleus by means of reports, referring to major school complaints, such as: learning difficulties, social vulnerability and risks, unsuitable behaviors, aggressiveness, sexual violence, school evasion, and so on. By means of this information, it was possible to realize that our work should be conducted close to educators, students, and family members, while prioritizing actions that could provoke dialogues in the comprehension and concretization of an inclusive school, reflecting on school curricula, educational environment, values and attitudes that, objectively or subliminally, construct and consolidate mechanisms for inclusion and exclusion. In this sense, we understand that it would be important to:

• Strengthen the dialogue with school practices, considering the observation of what was presented as complaint, thinking of this discourse position that exposes, in the everyday routine of this space: the strange, the aggressive, the one that won’t learn, the one that won’t follow rules. In this sense, Patto (1999) develops important conceptual reflections that help us understand the situations that influence the educational process and that blame individuals and their life histories for failure at school.

• Reflecting on the difficulties to handle differences, whether on interpersonal, professional, or affective relations and the effects of this contact with diversity;

• Recognizing the challenge of educators when it comes to breaking up with the logic of individualization of educational results and identify, in this process, in this process, a mechanism of referral, especially for health, which did not reflect the difficulties that came up in this everyday routine. Perceiving in this movement practices that disregarded attitudes, interaction and coexistence. According to Moysés (2009), all children are absolutely normal, but become ill in the process. When they get sick, they need psychological assistance, not because they are unable to learn, but because their lives are stigmatized, by this introjected sense of incapacity;

• Strengthen the actions of educators, including in this context the support by the NAAPA in the assistance to more complex situations that involve risk or vulnerability;

• Reflecting on educational reality and expectations regarding possible changes based on the presence of psychologists and social assistance at schools, handling situations and investigating contexts;

• Stimulating the interaction between professionals of education and the support network in order to construct more integrated actions in the territories. In order to do so, we organized work fronts, described below.

Itinerance at School Units

Support and assistance to more punctual situations, participating, with the school community, and actions with groups of students, and families, whose difficulties in the schooling process proved more complex and of difficult management at school. The meetings and practices contributed to this collective project, with the process of teaching and learning, according to experience reports, and the debate charts of the NAAPA.⁵ At study times, with the school team, strengthening knowledge that emerged in the individual and collective experiences. In the joint actions involving the protection network.

Grupos de Trabalho (GT) - Work Groups

The proposal of the groups was of central importance in our work. The group was willing to construct a systematic space of studies, reflections and learning with the help of important points: the continuous formation of teachers in the reflexive trend, as a policy of appreciation of personal and professional development of teachers and educational institutions (Pimenta, 1996), the practice of research in education and the idea of pedagogical abstractionism (Azanha, 2011), the knowledge that is the basis for teachers to realize their work in the classroom (Tardif, 2002) and the comprehension of this rich diversity of individuals, in social experiences and of knowledge in the right to information (Arroyo, 2013). It was important to produce spaces and conditions that led to the continuous formation of professionals in the workplace, and self-formation networks, and in partnership with health and social assistance professionals. The results were meetings where educators could share their practices and experiences, comprehending a formation of collaborative nature with specific knowledge but that did not constitute themselves as unique and recognizing in this diversity important contributions to educational practice. In this sense, Pimenta (1996, p. 85) says that “(...) the problems of the professional practice of teachers are not merely instrumental, but include problem situations that require decisions in a field of great complexity, uncertainty, singularity, and conflict of values”.

The study groups were meetings organized with the following themes:

Vulnerability and social risk - the importance of school

Reflecting on inequality, the relations of contemporaneous society in the quest for social justice and based on the interaction between social, economic, political, and cultural factors, understanding the construction of the term, historicizing the concept of vulnerability and social risk. Recognizing its subjective, relational, structural, and cultural aspects while identifying the conditions and circumstances where the violence environments lead to or stimulate situations and experiences that might victimize vulnerable people. The meetings were important because they provided greater comprehension on the system of guarantee for the right of children and adolescents, or “Sistema de Garantia de Direitos da Criança e Adolescente”, its actors and its functionality.

Conflicts, violence, and violations

In the activities and in the sharing of experiences, it was possible to discuss a social context that is permeated by injustice, inequality, and prejudice. It was also possible to identify the effects of these aggressions in ourselves and understanding how they are present in our everyday attitudes, while approaching processes of exclusion, cycles of violence and their personal, interpersonal, structural, and cultural dimensions, as well as critically discussing school as an institution that not only absorbs but that also generates violence.

In these group meetings, the team was provided with the partnership of Andréa Arruda Paula.⁶, an important contribution to education psychology, in the approach to themes and in the reflections on the functioning of learning mechanisms, and the efficacy of educational strategies and school itself as an organization.

School and territory - dialogues between the Network of Attention and Social Protection

Understanding the purposes, when educators, students and families are involved in the everyday life of education, is what makes education happen. It is not something easily acquired individually. It is a collective achievement. These meetings led to the comprehension that nobody is alone at school, and when it comes to the right to education, family and school are not alone either. In this meeting, the NAAPA was provided with the partnership of professionals from the CAPS, CRAS, CREAS and Tutelage Council, in the presentation of services, and practices, in organization and in the planning of strategies for taking care of the territory. In the perspective of integration and articulation of educational practices, social demands and human rights, it was possible to strengthen the identification of school as an institution referred to the promotion of health and part of the network. With the contributions of Andréa, NAAPA team, network professionals, and the report of experiences of educators, it was possible to discuss the complaints regarding an overloaded school and the complexity of the work of the teachers, and to perceive a knowledge and the environment, concerning social, cultural, ethical, political, and economic problems. The comprehension that school is not an isolated institution and that it has been challenged every day to articulate the knowledge that is approached in the school context with reality, the difficulties and the social needs of the students. Reflecting on prefabricated schemes in the comprehension that, despite all problems and scarcity in infrastructure and educational resources, school is a place of contradiction, for voices of resistance, for the construction of nature and culture, of knowledge regarding what is public, of the right to be among peers and the necessary transformations to end inequality. The meetings revealed a commitment to continuous collective construction for facing school conceptions and practices that historically constituted themselves as hegemonic.

A movement of caring for the network

The itinerances of the NAAPA team also happened in the protection network, in the territories, with the participation in the forums and meetings and the strengthening of articulation and dialogue. In these meetings, our intention was to think with the teams of ways to articulate the actions developed in an isolated or fragmented way. In this context, an important action for formation came from the initiative of the professionals that worked with adolescents and the young people especially following social educational measures. The objective was to establish communication channels between the professionals that worked in the services and the education professionals at schools. In partnership with the pedagogical administration of the DRE, it was possible to realize the first meeting of educators and services of social educational measures in an open environment in the southern neighborhoods of the city ofSão Paulo. The carefully planned meetings with the professionals in the service focused on the sharing difficulties in order to handle complex situations in the professional everyday life of institutions reflecting on adolescence and conflicts, violation of rights, vulnerability, and the ethical, political, pedagogical, and social commitment, as well as the necessity to critically understand in depth the importance of school in this process. In the interactions, and the constant process of analysis on experiences that were shared, educators demystified the service and identified the school in this Set up consistent actions of public policies that could decrease vulnerability and social exclusion to which these young people in adolescents were exposed.

Continuous formation

Another important action took place by means of the proposal for courses for assistance to school demands, discussing the possibilities for intervention by means of case studies. In this action, the partnership was with Valéria C. Braunstein, with meetings that led to the possibility of dialogue on compliance regarding the confrontation to adverse situations that provoked, in the school environment, a lot of discomfort and a somewhat crippling effect. In general, it was something upsetting especially regarding matters related to the inclusion of children and adolescents with disabilities and social vulnerability. Situations that, in many moments, paralyze the actions of teachers who distanced themselves from the teaching practice, and from comprehension of actions and pedagogical relations in this everyday context, and from possibilities that could effectively promote learning and that made any sense in the relation of each child or adolescent with knowledge. In this sense, it was important to bring these negative points to a formative meeting. Managers, support teams, teachers, and professionals who want to make school a better place also feel discouraged, disqualified, and negatively affected by a score regime with so many bureaucratic requirements.

Another important action also took place in the dialogue on sexual and domestic violence. Juliana Fonseca O. Neri⁷ shared important information regarding the practice of school when it comes to such phenomena, from the moment of suspicion until refer all to protection networks.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The experience, in this work, was based on proposals and actions for formation, of itinerances, of dialogues and interventions in the school environment, reflecting, questioning, and the problematizing the school referrals. Consequently, it was possible to build with the education, health, and social assistance teams, proposals for practices that were not medicalizing and that respected the different ways of being, acting, and interacting with the world. The actions were based on a perspective of plural knowledge, in the recognition of the educational act, in the subjectivity of educators, and in the constitution of a permanent space for studies, for relations mediated by work, and for knowledge obtained from these experiences. Thus, it was important to perceive during these actions, the reverberations of these experiences in the development of teamwork among the school professionals, especially in the change in their practices regarding the challenges of the schooling process.

There is the necessity of a consistent set of actions and educational policies in order to promote the fundamental right to education. Therefore, the author believes also that it is urgently necessary to break up with some concepts and conceptions that perpetuate the same school complaints without any action, proposals, movements, or organizations to modify the situation. Azanha (2011, p. 45) presents the argument that “[...] Brazilian schools have been studied as if they were abstract entities completely disconnected from historical environments”. In this sense, the author could observe that when we change our way of perceiving and move comprehension towards what indeed happens and has been happening regarding the practices that sustain inclusion, despite all adversities, unfavorable conditions and reports of lack of formation for the school teams, it is surprising how creativity, and the richness of alternatives present in these everyday experiences.

Finally, the author is grateful to the team: Paulo Cavalcante, psicólogo, Danielle Parussi, Graciane Balaban and Denise Perez, psychopedagogues, Mônica Costa, Education technical assistant, Giovanna Silva, pedagogical coordinator⁸ and also, Fernanda Macedo and Karina dos Santos, psychologists, Lais Nunes and Karoline Gomes, hearing and speech therapists, Lucilene Silva and Rosa Mello, social assistants⁹. This talented team that, from 2015 to 2016, with autonomy and innovation, persevered and toiled intensely in the implantation and implementation of the NAAPA in the territory of Campo Limpo, a Southern District of São Paulo.

REFERÊNCIAS

• Arroyo, M. G. (2013). Currículo, território em disputa(5 ed.). Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
• Azanha, J. M. P. (2011). Uma ideia de pesquisa educacional(2 ed.). São Paulo: Edusp.
• Moysés, M. A. A. (2009). A institucionalização Invisível - Crianças que não aprendem na escola Campinas: Mercado de Letras.
• Patto, M. H. S. (1999). A produção do fracasso escolar: histórias de submissão e rebeldia São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo.
• Pimenta, S. G. (1996). Formação de professores: saberes da docência e identidade do professor. Revista da Faculdade de Educação, USP, 1(1), pp. 72-89.
• Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Coordenadoria Pedagógica. Núcleo de Apoio e Acompanhamento para Aprendizagem (2016a). Caderno de debates do NAAPA: questões do cotidiano escolar (vol. 1), Relatos de experiências das equipes multiprofissionais vol-4. São Paulo: SME / COPED. Recuperado de https://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debate
  » https://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debate
• Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Coordenadoria Pedagógica. Núcleo de Apoio e Acompanhamento para Aprendizagem (2016b). Caderno de debates do NAAPA: questões do cotidiano escolar (vol. 2). São Paulo: SME / COPED. Recuperado dehttps://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debate
  » https://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debate
• Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Coordenadoria Pedagógica. Núcleo de Apoio e Acompanhamento para Aprendizagem(2016c). Caderno de debates do NAAPA: Orientações normativas (vol. 3). São Paulo: SME / COPED. Recuperado de https://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debate
  » https://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debate
• Secretaria Municipal de Educação. Coordenadoria Pedagógica. Núcleo de Apoio e Acompanhamento para Aprendizagem(2016d). Caderno de debates do NAAPA: Relatos de experiências das equipes multiprofissionais (vol. 4). São Paulo: SME / COPED. Recuperado dehttps://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debate
  » https://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debate
• Tardif, M. (2002). Saberes docentes e formação profissional(3 ed.). Petrópolis: Vozes.

• 1
  FAFE Fundação de Apoio à Faculdade de Educação, Support Foundation for Education College. Available at http://portal.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/Portals/1/Files/33858.pdf access on 07-27-2021
• 2
  Cadernos de Debates do NAAPA, or the NAAPA Debate Charts, available at https://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/noticias/cadernos-de-debates-do-naapa/ access on 27-07-2021
• 4
  A set of projects of Inclusive Education. Available at http://portal.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/Portals/1/Files/16040.pdf. Access on 07-27-2021.
• 5
  Volume 4, pp. 23-27. Available at https://educacao.sme.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/wp-content/uploads/Portals/1/Files/35139.pdf
• 6
  Graduation in psychology by the Universidade Bandeirante de São Paulo, Psichologyby the Universidade de Santo Amaro, Post-graduation in Human Sciences and its Technologies by the UNICAMP. Coordinator of projects of the Center of Human Rights and Popular Education of Campo Limpo.
• 7
  Master in Education: Curriculum by the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP) in the Line of Research on Public Policies and Educational and Curricular Reforms. Doctor in the same Program.
• 8
  Profissionais integrantes da carreira do magistério na Rede Municipal de São Paulo.
• 9
  Equipe Multidisciplinar - Programa Inclui.

• 3
  Graduate in Psychology by the Universidade Paulista, Pedagogy and specialized in Clinical and Institutional Psychopedagogy by the Universidade Nove de Julho, Professional Development in School Complaints and Master in Education by the USP, in the area of psychology and education. Doctor by the UNIFESP in the program of health and education for childhood and adolescence.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  29 Apr 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  04 Oct 2021
• Accepted
  04 Jan 2023