Os CAPS e o trabalho socioeducativo com grupos na perspectiva do serviço social: análise de uma experiência em município de pequeno porte

Abstract

This monograph examines the professional practice of social workers in mental health settings, emphasizing the socio-educational dimension developed through group work. The research seeks to understand the potential and limitations of technical interventions in a small-scale Psychosocial Care Center, drawing on the Professional Ethical-Political Project and the guidelines of the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform as references. To this end, it adopts a historical-dialectical materialist perspective, operationalized through an Experience Analysis of the socio-educational group "Health is Life". Findings reveal that integrating the Expanded Concept of Health with the Social Determinants of Health serves as a powerful tool against the hegemony of the biomedical model, by broadening service users' understanding of their illness processes and the social conditions influencing them. The results also highlight that positioning the social worker as the reference technician demands ongoing mediation to prevent the dilution of professional specificity into generic roles within multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams. Ultimately, the experience demonstrates that a socio-educational group, when conducted in a qualified and intentional manner, becomes a space for sociability and the production of critical meanings-essential for fostering user autonomy, agency, and citizenship in freedom.