Cuidar dos cuidadores : o (des)envolvimento da espiritualidade na prevenção de quadros de stress e burnout

A Humanidade anda cansada, esgotado. Um cansaço que é a soma do fardo de cada um e também parte do fardo de outros. E a Humanidade busca explicações para este cansaço. E quer aliviá-lo. E quer minimizá-lo. Mas busca muito mais que isso. Trata-se, enfim, de buscar não o remédio mas o sentido da própria existência, as respostas adedentro, ou seja, bem no interior do ser humano. O presente trabalho pretende ser uma reflexão – compreender para agir - sobre a busca da dimensão da espiritualidade como possível resposta na prevenção de quadros de stress e burnout. Quem trabalho na área da assistência e na relação de ajuda contínua com pessoas em situação de extrema fragilidade sabe que se não houver um cuidado na reposição de energias, com muita facilidade a pessoa chega a um estado de cansaço e a qualquer momento o turboadrenalina pode queimar. No âmbito da gestão de unidades sociais e bem-estar, cuidar dos cuidadores é a maior e mais nobre missão de qualquer Instituição. Pois, que serviços seriam vivenciados sem as pessoas que formam o corpo e, por isso, a vida de uma Instituição? O caminho da nossa reflexão é orientado para a Comunidade Vida e Paz, como espaço relacional que quer e procura ser um espaço de renovação de vidas – das pessoas sem abrigo – onde, amparadas por um conjunto de Cuidadores, cujo olhar se orienta num trabalho de unificação da pessoa, são imbuídos por uma espiritualidade que se quer colaborante na missão de dignificar cada pessoa e devolvê-la à sua condição original. A pessoa, cada pessoa, é a soma de si, da relação com outros e da relação com o transcendente. Na missão de cuidar, pode a espiritualidade ser ausente? Desta, retiramos um sentido coerente da existência, a verdade do dom e da dádiva e, por isso, uma vida feliz.

O processo de avaliação dos alunos do 1º ano do ensino médio do centro de ensino Manoel Beckman (São Luís-MA)

Analisar o processo de avaliação dos alunos do 1º ano do Ensino Médio do Centro de Ensino Manoel Beckman é o objetivo desta dissertação caracterizada como um estudo de caso. Para tanto se utilizou metodologia de abordagem qualitativa, por meio de aplicação de entrevistas e questionários além da observação direta aos sujeitos envolvidos, professores (as) e alunos (as) do 1º ano do Ensino Médio. Percebeu-se no desenvolvimento da investigação que a avaliação é direcionada, e, embora usando diversos instrumentos considerados modernos, esta classifica os alunos fazendo uma seleção dos que podem ser aprovados e dos que não podem ser aprovados. Concluiu-se que o trabalho foi significativo, à medida que nos possibilitou conhecer os sujeitos investigados e como a avaliação desempenha uma função classificatória e autoritária na escola, visto que a maioria dos (as) alunos (as) e professores (as) estão preocupados mais com a nota da prova para passar de ano do que com a aprendizagem, apesar desta ser significativa para eles, assim sugere-se que a escola trabalhe a avaliação da aprendizagem, não somente no sentido de aprovar ou reprovar, mas de contribuir com o educando para que ele possa conquistar sua autonomia para o exercício da cidadania.

Memory and power : two movements

The institutions that work with the preservation and diffusion of cultural heritage - be them archive, libraries, museums, art galleries or cultural centres - present a certain discourse about reality. To understand this discourse, composed by sound and silence, by fullness and emptiness, by presence and absence, by remembrance and forgetting, an operation is implied, not only with the enunciation of speech and its gaps, but also the comprehension of that which causes to speak, of who is speaking and of the point whence one speaks. Preservation and destruction, or, in another way, conservation and loss, walk hand in hand in the arteries of life. As suggested by Nietzsche (1999, p.273), it is impossible to live without loss, it is entirely impossible to live avoiding destruction to play its game and drive the dynamics of life on. However, by means of a kind of tautological argument, one often justifies preservation by the imminence of loss and memory by the threat of forgetting. Thus, one ceases to consider that the game and the rules of the game between forgetting and memory are not fed by themselves and that preservation and destruction are not opposed in a deadly duel, but instead they complement one another and are always at the service of subjects that build themselves and are built through social practices. To indicate that memories and forgettings can be sown and cultivated corroborates the importance of working towards the denaturalisation of these concepts and towards the understanding that they result from a construction process also involving other forces, such as: power. Power is a sower, a promoter of memories and forgettings.

Museums, memories and social movements

From modernity to the contemporary world, museums have been acknowledged for their power to produce metamorphoses of meanings and functions, for their ability to adapt historic and social determination, and for their calling for cultural mediation. They derive from creating gestures which bind the symbolic and the material, which bind what is sensitive and what is intelligible. For this very reason the bridge metaphor fits them well, a bridge cast between different times, spaces, individuals, social groups and cultures, a bridge that is built with images and which holds a special place in the imaginary.

Apoio formal a cuidadores de idosos dependentes: a perspectiva dos profissionais da rede Nacional de Cuidados Continuados Integrados

Tendo em conta que o envelhecimento é um processo complexo que origina dependência e, por sua vez, necessita de um cuidador para assegurar os cuidados pessoais e personalizados ao idoso dependente, esta pesquisa trata de analisar as perspetivas dos profissionais que trabalham na Rede Nacional de Cuidados Continuados Integrados (RNCCI) acerca do internamento para descanso do cuidador informal. Esta pesquisa visa compreender de que modo é realizado o descanso do cuidador. Foram efetuadas entrevistas a três profissionais de uma Equipa de Cuidados Continuados (Cascais) e a outros três de uma Unidade de Cuidados Continuados (L-Nostrum, SA). Verificamos que o internamento para descanso do cuidador é um bom objetivo, mas é insuficiente para as reais necessidades deste. Atualmente, apenas é proporcionado o internamento para 30 dias o que torna o apoio muito limitado assim como a intervenção dos profissionais. O tempo para descanso é escasso e após este período o cuidador volta à rotina do cuidado e o cansaço e desgaste podem não ser colmatados. Para além disto, não há um apoio estruturado dirigido aos cuidadores; apenas é substituída a tarefa da prestação de cuidados ao seu familiar. Concluímos que apesar deste tipo de resposta ter a função de descanso do cuidador, este centra-se mais no doente, do que no prestador de cuidados.

Site Safety and Food Affect Movements of Semipalmated Sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) Migrating Through the Upper Bay of Fundy

The upper Bay of Fundy is a critical stopover site for Semipalmated Sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) during their fall migration. However, little is known about factors that influence selection of feeding and roosting sites by these birds, or the extent to which birds move between different sites during their time in the region. Using radio-telemetry, we studied movement patterns, examined habitat use, and tested hypotheses associated with factors influencing foraging and roost-site selection. Movements of radio-tagged sandpipers were tracked in the upper Bay of Fundy in August 2004 and 2005. In 2004, sandpipers from the Minas Basin, Nova Scotia and Chignecto Bay, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, were tracked, and in 2005, sandpipers were tracked only in Chignecto Bay. Sandpipers were highly mobile in both the Minas Basin 2004 and Chignecto Bay 2005, making daily movements of up to 20 km between foraging and roosting sites, although very little movement was detected in Chignecto Bay in 2004. Migrating sandpipers appeared to select foraging sites based on relative safety, as measured by distance to cover, provided that these sites offered an adequate food supply. Similarly, roosting sandpipers preferred sites that were far from nearby trees that might offer cover to predators. This preference for safe sites became more apparent later in their stay in the Bay of Fundy, when birds were heavier and, therefore, possibly more vulnerable to predation. Semipalmated Sandpipers appear to be flexible during their time in the upper Bay of Fundy, displaying year-to-year and site-to-site variability in movement and mudflat usage. Therefore, multiple, synchronized population counts should be conducted at known roost sites in order to more accurately estimate Semipalmated Sandpiper abundance in this region. Furthermore, in a highly dynamic system where food can be variable, landscape features such as distance to cover may be important factors to consider when selecting candidate sites for shorebird conservation measures.

Movements and Habitat Use by Temperate-Nesting Canada Geese During the Postbreeding Period in Southern Québec

Individual behavior that reduces vulnerability to predation can affect population dynamics of animals. Temperate-nesting Canada Geese (Branta canadensis maxima) have increased steadily throughout the Atlantic flyway and have become a nuisance in some parts of their range. The objective of our study was to describe movements and habitat use during the postbreeding period of Canada Geese recently established in southern Québec. More specifically, we wanted to determine whether geese were using areas where hunting was allowed to assess the potential of harvest to control the number of geese. We tracked a sample of geese fitted with radio or conventional alphanumeric collars throughout the fall in three zones characterized by different habitats and hunting pressure. Before the hunting season, geese left the breeding area where hunting was allowed to reach suburban areas where firearm discharge was prohibited or hunters’ numbers were low. These postbreeding movements occurred when juveniles were approximately three months old. We observed few local movements among zones once migrant geese from northern breeding populations reached the study area. Radio-collared geese used mainly natural habitats (75.4 ± 2.6%), followed by urban (14.4 ± 2.7%), and agricultural habitats (10.3 ± 0.8%). They were located 73.8 ± 6.2% of the time in areas where hunting was prohibited. Geese that attended their juveniles during brood rearing were more prone to use areas where firearm discharge was restricted than geese that had abandoned or lost their brood. This study shows that under the prevailing regulations, the potential of hunting to manage the increasing breeding population of Canada Geese in southern Québec is limited.

Caring at a distance: Gift Theory, aid chains and social movements

This paper takes as its starting point recent work on caring for distant others which is one expression of renewed interest in moral geographies. It examines relationships in aid chains connecting donors/carers in the First World or North and recipients/cared for in the Third World or South. Assuming predominance of relationships between strangers and of universalism as a basis for moral motivation I draw upon Gift Theory in order to characterize two basic forms of gift relationship. The first is purely altruistic, the other fully reciprocal and obligatory within the framework of institutions, values and social forces within specific relationships of politics and power. This conception problematizes donor-recipient relationships in the context of two modernist models of aid chains-the Resource Transfer and the Beyond Aid Paradigms. In the first, donor domination means low levels of reciprocity despite rhetoric about partnership and participation. The second identifies potential for greater reciprocity on the basis of combination between social movements and non-governmental organizations at both national and trans-national levels, although at the risk of marginalizing competencies of states. Finally, I evaluate post-structural critiques which also problematize aid chain relationships. They do so both in terms of bases-such as universals and difference-upon which it might be constructed and the means-such as forms of positionality and mutuality-by which it might be achieved.

Adjoint goal-based error norms for adaptive mesh ocean modelling

Flow in the world's oceans occurs at a wide range of spatial scales, from a fraction of a metre up to many thousands of kilometers. In particular, regions of intense flow are often highly localised, for example, western boundary currents, equatorial jets, overflows and convective plumes. Conventional numerical ocean models generally use static meshes. The use of dynamically-adaptive meshes has many potential advantages but needs to be guided by an error measure reflecting the underlying physics. A method of defining an error measure to guide an adaptive meshing algorithm for unstructured tetrahedral finite elements, utilizing an adjoint or goal-based method, is described here. This method is based upon a functional, encompassing important features of the flow structure. The sensitivity of this functional, with respect to the solution variables, is used as the basis from which an error measure is derived. This error measure acts to predict those areas of the domain where resolution should be changed. A barotropic wind driven gyre problem is used to demonstrate the capabilities of the method. The overall objective of this work is to develop robust error measures for use in an oceanographic context which will ensure areas of fine mesh resolution are used only where and when they are required. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Goal sketching with activity diagrams

Goal orientation is acknowledged as an important paradigm in requirements engineering. The structure of a goal-responsibility model provides opportunities for appraising the intention of a development. Creating a suitable model under agile constraints (time, incompleteness and catching up after an initial burst of creativity) can be challenging. Here we propose a marriage of UML activity diagrams with goal sketching in order to facilitate the production of goal responsibility models under these constraints.

Goal sketching: towards agile requirements engineering

This paper describes a technique that can be used as part of a simple and practical agile method for requirements engineering. The technique can be used together with Agile Programming to develop software in internet time. We illustrate the technique and introduce lazy refinement, responsibility composition and context sketching. Goal sketching has been used in a number of real-world development projects, one of which is described here.