Concealment of financial aid? The Volta para Casa (Back Home) Program on documents and events

Abstract

A fundamental government initiative to change the living conditions of deinstitutio-nalized Brazilian people, the De Volta para Casa (Back Home) Program is formed by some ele-ments, including the psychosocial rehabilitation financial aid. Thirty-four state and academic documents from ordinances to papers were gathered to identify which elements of the Program perme-ate the records and debates about it throughout the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform, converging with the studies of Juarez Pereira Furtado and Ligia Maria Vieira-da-Silva about the dynamics of scientific and bureaucratic fields, such as mental health. Furthermore, we ethnographed five events that gathered institutionalized people and other agents from this field. We noticed the remarkable presence of the Therapeutic Residential Services (SRT) as an element of the referred Program both in the records and the scientific debates, while the mentioned financial aid was highlighted mainly in the government records.