Resources and technologies in Social Occupational Therapy: actions with the poor youth in town

• Published in: Cadernos de Terapia Ocupacional da UFSCar Vol. 22; no. 3; pp. 591 - 602
• Main Authors: Lopes, Roseli Esquerdo, Malfitano, Ana Paula Serrata, Silva, Carla Regina, Borba, Patricia Leme de Oliveira
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: 01.01.2014
• Subjects: Equality; Freedom; Public Space; Public Sphere; Social Change; Sociotherapy; Therapists; Urban Poverty; Youth
• ISSN: 0104-4931
• DOI: 10.4322/cto.2014.081

The METUIA team from the Occupational Therapy Department of the Federal University of Sao Carlos - UFSCar has been elaborating procedures and resources, which have produced contributions to the action of occupational therapy based on a local and communal dimension, aiming at a locally rooted technical contribution and directed to face the challenges of the social field. The territory notion adopted presupposes historical, economic, social and cultural dimensions that contextualize a given geographical area where the therapeutic and occupational action is developed. We have been dealing with questions related to the poor urban youth and working in the production of social technologies (understood as products, techniques or replicable methodologies developed in interaction with the community, and that represent alternatives for social transformation), which have been able to foster new possibilities of action, integrating and articulating actions of macro and micro social scope. This article presents discussions on Workshops of Dynamics, Activities and Projects; Individual and Territorial Follow-up; Articulation of Resources in the Social Field; and Dynamization of the Social Care Network. We support a continuous and critical reflection on the labor process, assuming the technical, ethical and political dimensions that comprise the professional qualification of occupational therapists. We also advocate that the practical and conceptual existence of these technologies promotes actions associated with the social question of the lives of these young individuals, seeking the expansion of equality, recognition of differences, and their space in the public sphere, so that more participation can be produced with more freedom, autonomy and solidarity. Adapted from the source document.