‘There's No Way You Can Help Me if I Don't Want to be Helped’: Unpacking Successful and Sustainable Work Approaches With Street‐Connected Youth and Their Families in Northeast Brazil

ABSTRACT

Although family reintegration of street‐connected youth has become the main objective of many governmental and civil society organizations, achieving this remains a complex task. This article explores what contributes to successful and sustainable change in work with street‐connected young people and their families based on descriptions provided by the youth and family members themselves and the professionals who work with them. The study draws on ethnographic data created in two civil society organizations and one governmental institution in urban Northeast Brazil. The results illustrate the desired change: weakening young people's connection to the street and its related lifestyle and strengthening their family and community ties and, as a result, achieving family reintegration. In addition, they discuss work approaches that can successfully and sustainably contribute to this change: relationship‐building, awareness‐raising and enhancing strengths. The article argues that these approaches are fundamentally rights‐based and can offer successful and sustainable change in these young people's situations and those of their families by valuing them as subjects of rights instead of stigmatizing or victimizing them. It further argues that such approaches should, therefore, be acknowledged in both practice and policy within a relational perspective that involves both young people and their families.