Psicologia e Sistema Único da Assistência Social - SUAS: estudo sobre a inserção dos(as) psicólogos(as) nos Centros de Referência da Assistência Social - CRAS's

Abstract

The expansion of the job offer to psychologists in the field of public policies provoked many changes in the theoretical-practical context of Psychology, arousing the interest of many researchers about issues related to this reality. The discussion about Psychology and Public Policies proceeds from the debate on Psychology and Social Compromise, strengthened in the academic-professional core after the decade of 1980, the same period in which the movements for the implantation of a Social Assistance Public Policy, which culminated in 2004 with the creation of the Social Assistance National Policy and the Social Assistance Unique System – SUAS. This system is organized in two levels of structures: the social basic protection and the special social protection of intermediate and high complexity. The social basic protection is put into effect through the services offered in the Social Assistance Reference Centers – CRAS, which count on psychologists and social assistants in their teams. For the first time the Psychology is officially inserted in a public policy, with a large job demand for professionals of this area. This offer in large scale and in short period produced a reality about which very little is known about. Therefore, the goal of this research was to comprehend the insertion of Psychologists in Ceará’s CRAS, under the official documents of the Social Assistance Policy. For this, the accomplished researched counted on the participation of fifteen Psychology professionals who work in CRAS, representing thirteen cities of the Ceará state. The instrument utilized was a digital questionnaire, with electronic address in the Internet and sent through e-mail. The analyzed categories tried to examine the movement of the Psychology in the context of the Social Assistance Policy, comprehend the motivations of the psychologists to join in this reality, investigate their understanding about their relations with the institutions and with the community, know, from the indication of the professionals, the main characteristics of their performance and, eventually, comprehend the role of the formation in the professional exercise in the CRAS. Amid the results, data that indicate the insertion of the Psychology in the Social Assistance Policy as resulting from the recognition of its potentials as science and profession to the pursuit of the objectives proposed by the policy were found, but this happened without the effective participation of the professional category of psychologists in the elaboration of this policy, what results in difficulties in the appropriation of such a policy by psychologists. As a result of this, besides of other dimensions, as the college graduation, labeled by the participants as deprived of referents different from the traditional ones and that are able to cope with the works in communities and the social representation of the psychologist based on these traditional models, the participants’ performance is still marked by the clinical model, although some point out options in the Social Compromise and in the Communitarian Psychology. The participants’ opinion, however, converges to the comprehension that it is necessary to constitute new practices and methodologies that meet the recent demands and promote the autonomy, the social strengthening, the collective mobilization and organization, as the PNAS proposes. The research aims, from these reflections on, to foment new constructions about this theme, contributing, thus, to a engaged and critical professional practice.