Burocratas de nível de rua do Sistema Único de Assistência Social : o que fazem, como interagem e classificam os usuários?

Abstract

The subject of the research is the implementation, by street-level bureaucracy (SLB), of a service of the Social Assistance System. The SLB are professionals who implement public services directly with citizens in working conditions that are almost always inappropriate. To act within these conditions and meet the specificities of the clients, these agents exercise discretion and make judgments, and it has an influence on public policies and citizens. The objective of the study was to describe and analyze the behavior of the SLB of the Serviço de Proteção e Atendimento Integral a Família e Indivíduos, destined at families in situations of violation of relational rights, offering socio-assistance follow-up based on bond building practices and reference with families. The research framework considered as analytical elements: the practices carried out, the interaction styles adopted with clients and the categorization schemes mobilized by the SLB; the factors that influences, its actions; and the social differentiations of clients associated with their behavior. A single case study was carried out with a team of 11 SLB from the service in Belo Horizonte. The qualitative approach of approximation and analysis of the object was used and the collection of triangular data techniques of direct observation, interviews, and documental sources (administrative records and Clients Reports). The material was systematized with the codification procedure in Atlas.Ti, in the light of the interpretative approach. It should be noted that the SLB carries out the follow-up of clients in a convergent manner with the guidelines, exercising discretion in the space left by normative, that is, adapting some activities, deciding which ones not to do, and doing other "unwritten" ones. In the researched case, the actions through practices tend to be standardization. But agents exercise discretion by adopting 17 styles of interaction with clients, with emphasis on those who value them and mediate their family relationships, as well as by operating judgments in the use of two behavioral categorization schemes of the target population: resistant-adherent and organized-unorganized. The SLB seems to apply knowledge of their profession to experience their work, carry out certain practices and create a form of pedagogical interaction with clients. The cases followed by SLB are discussed collectively with the service network and with the local management, in relationships that affect their actions. But the main influence is the physical conditions, demands, and behavior of the beneficiaries, in addition to some organizational elements, such as work overload and the network's service capacity. If, on the one hand, there was a differentiation understood in the segmentation of clients as more or less capable of overcoming their violations, on the other hand, positive differences in treatment were identified: insisting on the case of resistant beneficiaries and selecting cases of organized clients for shutdown with or without final organized. It was also noted that practices, styles, and categorizations are combined in the implementation of the service, shaping the agents' behavior together. The research highlights immediate contributions to studies on SLB, debates on the principles of the Social Assistance System, and management of the studied service.