Abstract

YUDEY J, Rodríguez-Mora  and  LOPEZ-ZAMBRANO, María A. Street Children and Adolescents in Venezuela: A public problem. Revista de Ciencias Sociales [online]. 2009, vol.15, n.1, pp.68-88. ISSN 1315-9518.

This paper is aimed at making a diagnosis about street children in Venezuela, from a public policy approach known as pragmatism. The general objective was to make a situational diagnosis about street children in Venezuela and formulate proposals focused on improving their quality of life, based on empirical verification of a policy model designed by Rodríguez (2001). Methodology was based on the elaboration of a state of the art (SA) and a systematic review of literature (SRL).  This permitted verifying a set of causes common to the problem as well as the non-existence of national public policies, official statistics, monitoring and evaluation systems and databases with information about the population affected and the different institutions working in the area, all of which are indispensable for the decision-making process and the elaboration of public policies. The existence of street children constitutes a public problem that requires the immediate design of effective, efficient and efficacious public policies on the part of the Venezuelan State. These should be the product of an ample, inclusive study that considers not only the participation, the contribution and the accumulated experience of diverse public and private institutions that have worked in the area, but also of the children and adolescents themselves who experience street life.

Keywords : Street children; institutions; social programs; public policies.