Reinserción, adopción e institucionalización de niños, niñas y adolescentes: un estudio sociodemográfico de caos en el hogar infantil Tadeo Torres en la ciudad de Cuenca, durante el período enero 2018 - noviembre 2019

Abstract

This research was conducted in “Hogar Infantil Tadeo Torres”, in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador; this institution addresses institutionalization processes as well as children's and adolescents' reintegration and adoption. The proposed objective was to analyze the reintegration cases, adoption, and institutionalization of children and adolescents between January 2018 and November 2019. The applied methodology was exploratory-descriptive, with a cross-sectional nonexperimental qualitative approach; the utilized techniques were the survey, the semistructured interview, and the documental analysis; the methods were the synthetic-analytical and the inductive-deductive. The most significant results enabled us to evidence that certain internal and external factors to the institution impact the interdisciplinary team intervention on the family reintegration processes. On the other hand, other sociodemographic factors are related to the institutionalization of children and adolescents. Similarly, it was determined that family dysfunction affects significantly the conducted processes of institutionalization, having a direct repercussion on children’s and adolescents’ biopsychosocial development. Additionally, the presence of disabilities suggests higher levels of vulnerability and social exclusion. The main conclusions point out that certain institutional limitations impede that these can work effectively and efficiently alongside the legal norm and the best interest of children and adolescents. Early parenthood, dysfunctional family scenarios, limited sexual education, poverty, and the chronic family violence cycle in the homes of the parents are constant factors of the institutionalized children’s and adolescents’ relatives, thus incurring inadequate upbringing contexts that if they are not detected in time, they may give rise to situations of extreme abuse and/or murder.