A atuação de assistentes sociais nos centros de referência social - CRAS de Belo Horizonte : entre a institucionalidade e a discricionariedade

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the proceeding of social workers in social welfare policy in Belo Horizonte, specifically in the Social Assistance Reference Centres. It was sought to understand the institutional, organizational and discretionary factors that underlie the action of these professionals and their influence on the process of implementation of social welfare policy in the municipality. It was used as analytical approach the concepts of "street bureaucrat" or "street level bureaucracy" of Lipsky (1980); technology of Perrow (1976); and approaches to the implementation of public policies. It is understood that social workers responsible for implementing social assistance policy are very important to understand how it really apply. Although there are rules to guide the work, they are not able to determine and limit the performance of the professionals that implement the rules. These bureaucrats have wide discretion face of everyday situations and often unforeseeable imposed on them. They face several difficulties for lack of resources, work overload, without time to plan activities, realize differences in the performance of professionals from other public units of assistance policy, question the relevance of capacity building and training time provided, ultimately, they are inserted in a very dynamic reality, full of obstacles to work, forcing them to take discretionary decisions. The object of intervention of social welfare policy - users and families - is almost not analyzable, generic, multifaceted, making it difficult to determine intervention strategies and also the analysis of the effectiveness of the policy.