Health Promotion, Occupational Performance and Social Vulnerability: subsidies for Occupational Therapy intervention with adolescents sheltered

Abstract

The health promotion in the perspective of the occupational therapy is constructed from the involvement of the subjects in significant occupations. Circumstances in which people don't' have the opportunity of engaging itself characterize the situation of occupational injustice, justifying the adoption of strategies of empowerment that might be based upon the model of occupational empowerment. It is outlined among these circumstances; the situations of social vulnerabilities faced by adolescents that were institutionally supported. This article aims to describe and analyze the occupational development of adolescents, before and during the institutional support. The data were collected in a female children and adolescent support institution by the means of a semi-structured interview and participative observation, and analyzed from an adapted content analysis technique. Two analyses categories were elaborated in which they are discussed the activities accomplished by adolescents before and during the support related to the distinctive areas of occupation, besides of the relation of social webs of support of the adolescents with occupational performance. Generally saying, it was possible to realize the complexity of the factors that characterize the occupational development adolescents who face the social vulnerability, being necessary empowerment actions, with positive repercussions in the perceptions of the health conditions, that guided interventions to the adolescents themselves, as well as the actions of strengthening the social support net.