Terapeutas ocupacionais no Sistema Único de Assistência Social: mapeamento no Espírito Santo

In 2011, occupational therapy was recognized as one of the categories that can form the reference team and the management of SUAS equipment, with an increase in occupational therapists in this sector on the national scene. This research aims to map the insertion of occupational therapists in social care units in the state of Espírito Santo from 2012 to 2019, collecting general data on the work developed and the professionals. For this, we used the public database “SUAS Census”. The results showed an increase in the number of occupational therapists from five to 34. In 2019, most of them were working at Centro Dia and CREAS. The most frequent employment contracts (67.6%) were for private sector employees, temporary employees and workers of companies/cooperatives/entities. Most professionals were higher education technicians (85.2%), with weekly workload between 21 and 30 hours (50%), most of them female (91.1%) and aged between 21 and 30 years (50%). Despite the increase of occupational therapists in the state, in SUAS, the continuous organization of the profession is still necessary for greater professional insertion, especially in basic social protection, with the principle of multidisciplinary work to meet the needs of the brazilian population.