[Using the Fourth Generation Evaluation in a Center of Psychosocial Attention]

The study reports the use of the Evaluation of Fourth Generation in a Center of Psychosocial Attention (CAPS). A qualitative evaluation was carried through with the purpose of learning the service dynamics, the ways the actors interact and how the senses are built by those people in relation to their practice. The data collection was made in a CAPS in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, during the period between October and November of 2006. The applied methods were: observation, which made possible to experience the service context, interviews with 13 service users, 13 relatives and 13 mental health care professionals. The fieldwork experience allowed us to accomplish the joint of different methods of data collection in the search of service evaluation through a constructivist perspective. The evaluation allowed a problematization of mental care health in Centers of Psychosocial Attention and contributed to the emancipatory process of the involved subjects.