Conhecendo o perfil mediacional de mães sociais: um estudo sobre as interações em abrigos

Abstract

This study aimed to identify and evaluate the mediation profile of social mothers who act in shelter contexts, due to the importance of adequate interactions which foster the ties with infant in risk situation. The search was performed in a Home model shelter institution, in a Minas Gerais state city, Brazil. Four social caregivers of children up to age six have participated on it. Observations on the institutional daily life and interviews to social worker were done as well semi-structured interviews to the social mothers. For data collecting, the moments of interaction between the social mothers and the children were video taped during routine activities such as bath, feeding, waking, playing, and watching television times. Un amount of twenty ten minutes duration films were done, five to each social mother, which corresponds to three hours and twenty minutes tape. These films were transcribed and analyzed according to mediation criteria proposed by the Mediate Learning approach: Focalization, Meaning Mediation, Reward, Behavior Regulation and Expansion. The results showed that the most used mediation criterion was the Behavior Regulation one. Sometimes, it refers to what the children can do or not; sometimes, they guide or regulate their behavior. Data showed that the dialogues are poor between the social mothers and the children. I may be due to the lack of formation of these professionals for developing this function. The study discusses the need of a continuous program to form social mothers and besides it points the relevance of further studies in order to widely understand risk childhood, which, unfortunately, is a part of the universe of a great number of children who lives in shelter context. They perhaps can guide public policies that could respond to these small Brazilian concerns and rights.