Good practices and opportunities for improving the socio-educational accompaniment of young people in protection during the transition to adult life

Abstract

Youth in protection are emancipated within a context of vulnerability and lack of social support. The socio-educational accompaniment carried out by the professional teams is decisive in facilitating relationships and secure spaces. Educational intervention helps to achieve the goals of the transition to adult life. This research aimed to analyze good practices in the socio-educational accompaniment that allows creating a safe educational space from which adolescents in protection can begin the process of transition to adult life, as well as to define lines for improving the protection system to consolidate effective strategies and overcome the present obstacles. Qualitative research was designed, organized in three phases according to grounded theory, through participant observation of cases (N=6), longitudinal follow-ups (N=11), and interviews with professionals (N=7). The sample of young people comprised eleven men and seven women. Seven social educators participated. In phase one, notes were taken in a field notebook. In phases two and three, 62 interviews were conducted, 55 with young people leaving the protection system and 7 with professionals. The results indicated that the educational teams’ practices provided spaces of professional reference, promoting a safe scenario from which young people can begin the strenuous challenges of adult life. However, bureaucratic and organizational constraints of the protection system that hindered interventions were detected. Effective socio-educational action prioritized the times of accompaniment in spaces marked by ordinary daily life. It was concluded that it is necessary for residential resources to adapt the organization of work to the socio-educational perspective of the professional teams..