Occupational therapy, social assistance and social work with people with disabilities: experience report in a Day-Care Center

Abstract

This article aims to describe and analyze the work with people with disabilities in a Day-care Center of the Brazilian Welfare Policy System, based on an internship experience in occupational therapy carried out in the city of Rio de Janeiro in the year 2022. Taking as a basis a critical Marxian perspective and the theoretical-methodological framework of social occupational therapy, three categories of discussion were outlined, namely: social needs and objectives of professional action; the methodologies and resources used; the challenges in constructing the work: the contradictions involving the social assistance policy and the overcoming of clinical practices, both in terms of reading social needs and responding to the demands presented by service users. The experience showed that there is coherence and relevance between the objectives of the work and the purposes of the Welfare Policy, in addition to activities being an element that enhances actions, imparting a differentiated quality to the professional practice of occupational therapists in this social policy. We reflect that social occupational therapy is a coherent framework to inform social assistance work in this professional context.