Abstract

MORAES MARTINEZ, Ana Laura  and  SOARES-SILVA, Ana Paula. Leaving the shelter after reaching full legal age: the adolescents’ voice. Psicol. rev. (Belo Horizonte) [online]. 2008, vol.14, n.2, pp. 113-132. ISSN 1677-1168.

What does it mean to a child to be brought up in a children’s shelter? What does it mean when he is forced to leave it once he turns 18? As an attempt to understand such matters, this study was based on the story of two teenagers who were faced with leaving the shelter after being there for 12 years. Starting from a historical and cultural perspective, it used participating observation, interviews with the adolescents and the shelter staff, and narrative stories from one of the adolescents to build the corpus. Our guiding lights for the analysis were the meanings that leaving the shelter had to the adolescents. There was no support service of any kind to assist the adolescents in coping with their departure. There was some individualized assistance permeated by stereotypes created by the institution. Although one of the teenagers - of the active type - had paved his own path when preparing himself to leave, the other one - of the problematic type - was exhaustingly tutored by the institution in the exit process.

Keywords : Adolescence; Shelter; Children’s and adolescents’ rights; Human development.

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