Programa de habilidades sociais e construção de projeto de vida para adolescentes em instituições de acolhimento

Abstract

Adolescents in care must leave the institution when they turn 18 to live independently. However, the literature indicates a lack of institutional support and personal and relational resources to make this transition. To assist this process, based on the Bioecological Theory of Human Development, the present study aims to implement and evaluate a social skills and life project program (PHS-PV) with adolescents in institutional care. The specific objectives are: (1) to assess the needs to develop a program for promoting social skills and building a life project (PHS-PV), seeking to identify barriers, facilitators, and themes for the implementation and effectiveness of the intervention with social educators and adolescents in care institutions; (2) to describe the implementation and evaluate the effects of the program for promoting social skills and building a life project (PHS-PV) on the repertoire of social skills, perception of social support (friends, family, and teachers), self-efficacy beliefs, autonomy, and life project; (3) to evaluate the process of the program for promoting social skills and building a life project (PHS-PV) with adolescents in institutional care. Sixteen social educators from three care institutions in the state of Rio de Janeiro, mostly male, aged between 38 and 62 years, participated in the needs assessment through semi-structured interviews. Two members of the technical team from a participating institution, a psychologist and a social worker, also participated in the needs assessment. Additionally, 19 adolescents from four care institutions, mostly boys aged between 12 and 18 years, participated in the needs assessment. Ten adolescents from three care institutions, five girls and five boys aged between 12 and 17 years, participated in the PHS-PV. The intervention had a non-experimental design, with needs, outcomes (pre-test and post-test), and process assessments, consisting of eight sessions, each lasting two hours. The needs assessment showed that the technical team, social educators, and the adolescents in care recognized the importance of the proposed intervention, identifying challenges such as distrust, interpersonal conflicts, emotional difficulties, and lack of bonding, while highlighting facilitators such as establishing ties, an open environment, accessible materials, and valuing the adolescents' experiences. They suggested themes such as sexuality, responsibility, drugs, family, and the labor market for the intervention. The intervention promoted an increase in levels of empathy, civility, assertiveness, and affective approach, perception of social support from friends and teachers, general self-efficacy, emotional and attitudinal autonomy, and life projects involving affective relationships, positive aspirations, and religion and spirituality. The process evaluation showed that adolescents had difficulties completing homework but were highly engaged in the intervention, as they had few absences and expressed having more positive behaviors, feelings, and thoughts than negative ones throughout the intervention. The research data will contribute to future interventions and public policies for adolescents transitioning out of institutional care.