Institucionalização de crianças e adolescentes: uma análise sobre o acolhimento institucional

Abstract

The general objective of this paper was to analyze the institutional reception of children and adolescents aiming at defending and guaranteeing the right to family and community living. The social history of children in the country, the practice of abandonment, the path of institutionalization and the advent of ECA (1990) are examined. There is a debate on the defense of the right to family and community coexistence, and contradictions between the idealized family and the family living patters. We also discuss about the growing process of childhood judicialization and how the state paradoxically presents itself as a protector and as a violator of rights. Some aspects of the institutional reception situation in the national level and the exceptional and provisional protection measure foreseen in the ECA (1990). We investigate the institutional reception of children and adolescents in the municipal district of of Montes Claros / MG. For this purpose, we used bibliographic, exploratory and quantitative research, mainly through the National Survey of Children and Adolescents in Childcare Services (2013) and statistical reports of the National Adoption Council (CNA), besides the qualitative research conducted through semi-structured interviews carried out in Montes Claros / MG. As a result, it has been identified that there are thousands of children and adolescents living in foster care institutions in Brazil; the discourse of neglect often masks poverty and blames the family in the same proportion as it deprives the state of responsibility; the State, by keeping them in institutions, has violated their right to family and community coexistence. Justice is morose in the decision-making process on where to send foster children and the difficulties for family reintegration related to the non-resolution of the problems that generated the threats or violations of rights. There is non-compliance with the principle of preservation of family bonds, as provided in ECA (1990); and the long stay in foster care institutions is fateful, especially for those who do not fit into the adoption profile.