The prevention of violence in interdisciplinary programs implemented in Brazilian and Portuguese schools

This paper aims to understand how and to what extent interdisciplinary teams supporting public schools in the Brazilian and Portuguese context characterize and develop violence prevention actions. The research was carried out from an exploratory study through interviews with 24 professionals and later, a thematic analysis was done. The results indicate that prevention is always pointed out as a possibility in the Portuguese Program; in the Brazilian program, in addition to prevention-oriented discourses, limits regarding the realization of preventive activities in schools are also mentioned. In the locations investigated, flagged prevention actions are shown incipiently when compared to actions advocated by the WHO and the Pan American Health Organization. It is argued that a more strategic vision of the Ministry of Education and the Education Secretariats could contribute to avoid the sole accountability of schools concerning prevention of violence and thus enhance the decline of this phenomenon and favor its effects in the long term.