CHILDREN'S NARRATIVES ON INSTITUTIONAL SHELTERING: OPENING THE BOX OF MEMORIES, EXPERIENCES AND EXPECTATIONS
children; institutional sheltering; (auto) biographical approach.
The institutional sheltering is an exceptional temporary measure used when a child is inserted in a risk context. The institutionalization of children and teenagers has been a reality in Brazil since colonial times; having it undergone through several transformations until children were recognized as subjects of rights, in a peculiar condition of development, according to the integral protection doctrine. This research’s theoretical reference combines the Childhood’s Sociology, which demarcates children as the starting point for scientific investigations, and the (Auto)Biographical Approach that, in researches on humans, allows the reconnection between: reason, conceived as an epistemic subject (of knowledge); and emotion, conceived as an empirical subject (of experience). This research aimed to understand how children gives meaning to the institutional sheltering experience, in their life histories, in moments before the institutional sheltering experience, during the experience of being sheltered and their future perspectives and projections. This qualitative research is a comprehensive study that was carried out with the participation of six children institutionalized in Host Unit II in Natal - RN, two boys and four girls, age between 7 and 13 years old. Research steps: 1) Participant observation. 2) Conversations with the children: step in which the three main axes related to specific objectives were addressed and mediated by playful resources, that were constructed after the entry on the research field: a) "Box of memories", referring to memories before being institutionalized; b) HQ - Comic books, referring to living in Unit II; c) "Letters for the future", concerning the future. In addition to these, letters were also written to the judge of the Childhood Court, as a process closure. The analytic-interpretative trajectory of this research is based on autobiographical hermeneutics. Some thematic categories were produced from narrative meaning units. From this understanding, it is possible to perceive that it is an institutional environment marked by changes and ruptures, in addition to many demands. As for the results, we observed: I) Children can narrate their stories with the meanings possible to them, although there are marks. II) They realize the transitoriness of their relationships and the place they live in. III) They understand the need to be taken care of and sometimes they face unprotected protection. IV) Playing stands out as a resource, children imagine and create their own world, despite the discontinuities that are part of it. V) They present a need for greater participation and claims regarding the house and the environment in which they live, as well as the legal decisions about their futures. VI) Despite family conflicts, the children bet on their families and seek to project themselves into a future with dreams linked to a profession or even being with their families. Finally, this research advocates the relevance of studies highlighting the life histories of the participating children, as a fundamental scope for the construction of knowledge in the childhood area and to subsidize the construction of public policies aimed at children.