Relatório técnico-científico cartografia das controvérsias no acolhimento institucional na infância: os paradoxos da proteção integral em face das violências

Abstract

The history of the institutionalization of childhood in Brazil shows that the Institutional Foster Care Service (SAI) has been marked by contradictions since its inception—both in the implementation of its organizing and defining guidelines and in the ways children and adolescents, the target population of this protective measure, are perceived and cared for. Considering this context, this Technical-Scientific Report aimed to map and analyze the emerging controversies within the SAI, which is grounded in the discourse of Comprehensive Protection. To achieve this, the methodology combined Controversy Mapping with Actor-Network Theory, which allows for heterogeneous compositions intertwined in fields of debate and dispute. The breadth of this method, which considers the mediations of spokespersons, intersections, and relationships between networks and actors/actants, enabled the identification and analysis of four controversies within the SAI in the city of Belo Horizonte: religious influence within the Service; the bond between caregivers and fostered children; family and community living; and comprehensive protection amid abandonment. These controversies served as evidence that the institutionalization of children in the name of Comprehensive Protection is paradoxical in its means and interventions, since in seeking to overcome violence, it ends up producing "new" forms of violence. Furthermore, the controversies pointed to the urgent need to implement alternative care practices that foster support and assistance for children and their families, with the aim of preventing the breakdown of family ties.