O CRAS como um modelo territorial de gestão social: proposta de um sistema de avaliação e monitoramento

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the management challenges inherent to CRAS (equivalent to Social Service Assistance Reference Center) model from its interpretation as a territorial model of social management. Its purpose is to contribute to the recent discussion on the implementation and success of such a model. First CRAS was installed in 2003 and today the more than 5000 units distributed throughout the country are responsible for implementing nationally the basic social protection guidelines of the Unified Social Assistance, approved in 2005. In order to support the proposed discussion, this paper seeks to reconstruct the creation process of the CRAS model, addressing peculiar attention to the Organic Law of Social Welfare, to identify their innovation points, interpreting it as a territorial model of social management and to present and discuss their major challenges according to the proposed interpretation, by using CRAS from Salvador Metropolitan Region as a laboratory for discussion and analysis. From this approach on, four management challenges, that are organized around the understanding of the CRAS, emerges: (a) articulator of the social goals multiplicity belonging to the same territory; (b) new cognitive and relational process coordinator; (c) evaluator and trainer for its own actions and resources; and (d) political activity locus. Then it was proposed a qualitative dimension to add to existing Census CRAS quantitative dimensions with the users, planners and CRAS coordinators participation.