The family visit (VF) should be understood as an important means of bringing people
together who, for various reasons, are far apart and / or had difficult relationship. This
research aimed to investigate aspects that characterize the family visit in child care
institutions in the metropolitan area of Belém. For this, three studies were performed,
one quantitative and two qualitative with descriptive and exploratory approaches. The
first study aimed to describe general caracteristics of family visit in host institutions in
the metropolitan region of Belém. The second study investigated aspects of
environmental organization and the preparation of the child before, during and after the
visit, considering, therefore, the point of view of the technicians and educators in the
surveyed institutions. The third study investigated the family visit as a proximal
process, analyzing the interactions occurring among children who were in the child care
institutions and the family that visited these infants. In the first study, as the research
was done through documentary research, data collection was made exclusively from
medical records provided by the institutions surveyed, using two research tools: a
characterization form of children and a description of the institution questionnaire. In
the second study, the collection data was carried out using semi-structured interviews to
identify the perception of technicians and educators about the VF in a particular context.
In the third study, data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews
with visitors and the observation of their interactions with the children at the time of
visit. The results from the first study indicated that there was a significant statistically
association between the condition of the child receive or not the visit with the following
variables: the welcoming time (p = 0.034) and the destiny of the child after leaving the
institution (p = 0.012). It was verified that there was a significant statistically
association between the condition of the child receive or not mother's visit with the
following variables: abandonment (p = 0.25) and sexual violence (p = 0.002) as well as
with the visit of uncles who abandon (p = 0.001) and sexual violence (p = 0.000). In
addition, the results indicate a significant statistically association between the variables
to receive community’s visit with the abandonment as a motive of the caring for the
child (p = 0.037). In the second study, the data suggest that in the government
institution little or no attention has been given for the preparation of the child and for
the environment at the moment of the family’s visit while in the non-governmental
organization, it was observed a care and great attention to this form of face-to-face and
social interaction among members of the same family or community, separated for
whatever reason. In the third and last study, it was discussed why and how the visit can
constitute an important proximal process in terms of bioecology of human development.
Based on four case studies, aspects were analyzed searching to describe the proximal
processes observed at different moments of the family visit. The results showed that in
all cases there were effects of competence and dysfunction in the proximal relationship
between the visitors and the ones who are visited. The studies helped to verify that the
family visit (VF) can act as a means to guarantee the right to family and community life
for children institutionally accepted, in that it contributes through the quality of
interactions held at this time for the preservation of ties relatives. In this sense, it is
considered that the family visit can promote the healthy development of the child even
in a often hostile environment, such as host institutions.
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