The Residential Care through the Children’s Perspective: Physical and Social Aspects of the Context

Abstract

The present article investigates the perspective of children about the institutional context, considering the physical and social aspects of the environment, taking part of the research six children from a shelter in the metropolitan region of Belém/Pará/Brazil. For the data collection were used semi structured interviews and children’s stories. The interviews were fully transcribed for content analysis from which were extracted the following categories: social aspects of the environment: interactions and activities established in the institution; and physical aspects of the environment: variety and availability of objects. To what concerns the social aspects, the main results show that the children were free to play in different areas of the institution, enabling interactions among siblings. Moreover, the activities performed outside the institutional environment, such as tours, were much appreciated by the children. Regarding the physical aspects, the institution had a great variety of objects, as toys, to which the children had access. Even though some of the objects were shared among the children, such as clothes and toys, some of the strategies of the staff were to value the individuality and subjectivity of the children. Therefore, it was possible to debate through the children’s perspective some important aspects related to the physical and social context of the residential care.