The establishment of mechanisms used exclusively to the assistance of children and adolescents with severe mental disorders is a recent achievement. Therefore, there are few studies focusing these services. This research aims at investigating the way the professionals who work at a Psychosocial Community Care Center for Children and Adolescents (CAPSi) from a city in the southeast of Brazil understand the processes of health and illness of the users of this service. 24 professionals were interviewed. We used semi-structured guided questions. The data were submitted to a theme-content analysis. Among the themes of analysis we pointed out: the explanation of mental diseases under a multi-causal view; the fact that the disorder is understood as a related phenomenon; the possibility of social reintegration and citizenship; the presence of psycho-suffering and the variations in the disorder; the importance of early diagnosis for such cases. The professionals involved seem to be concerned to the peculiarity of the users, with a therapeutic tendency associated to the policies addressed to those people.
Mental health services; children; adolescents