Building up spaces to live: action of occupational therapy with a child at social risk

Abstract

This paper discusses the developments of occupational therapy actions taken when dedicating attention to a child at social risk which allowed living shared experiences in the territory of the city of São Paulo. Those actions stood for a potent device to build up spaces to experience the world and to come closer to the reality experienced by the child and her family by facing the poverty and precariousness of the living conditions at Jaguaré slum. The need to reflect on the experience led us to prepare a research project where the action-research methodology allowed observing shared experiences directly, recording meetings, programming together activities and theoretical studies, thus enabling a reflection on the practice and its impacts on children's development and leading to new developments of the very attention device. Playful, artistic and cultural activities enabled new bonding layers, more circulation in the territory of the city and the broadening of the socio-cultural repertoire of all authors involved in the work.