CARE PATHWAY PROJECT: THE PEDOGOGICAL PURPOSE AND ACTIONS ON MENTAL HEALTH IN PRIMARY CARE/BRAZIL

Introduction and objectives: The Care Pathways project is one of the actions of the Health Ministry (HM) in partnership with three public health institutions for mental health in primary care; planned to provide training to all Community Health Workers (CHW) and one Auxiliary or Practical Nursing (APN) of each Family Health Services totalizing 292,899 students. Method: The project content based on national politics on mental health and drug abuse with damage reduction as a center of health care. The pedagogical purpose went toward to Freire’s problematization method. Results and conclusion: The pedagogical team created three teaching materials, as well the courses to the students and to their “teachers”, and trained 187 counselors (for distance education to the tutors), and 2000 tutors to focus the ability on reflections of the workers about their every-day capacity to make health intervention related with mental suffering and drug abuse in their communities. The course brought different points of view about mental health helping to construct a new look for it. It pointed to the need for training the whole primary care team to broaden the understanding on mental suffering.