[Seeking to guarantee the rights of children and adolescents: our experience].

This report discusses the nursing activities developed by a group of professionals within the family context. Children and their families maintain relationships determined historically by the social context within which they live. According to the National Survey by Address Sampling, 53.5% of Brazilian children and adolescents live in families whose monthly income per capita is under one half of a minimum salary. The consequences of the country's recessive economy have a serious effect upon the entire population, potentially interfering in the family's health and, thus, in that of children and adolescents. When working with families we must consider what the family believes to be its function, since, despite the fact that the Children's and Adolescent's Statute gives the legal definition of family obligations, it is the family's beliefs that actually direct or define the role it plays in caring for and protecting each of its members. The "Support Couples" project, directed by this group, takes into consideration a family's particular characteristics so that it can offer support to the family to help it meet those legal requirements related to child and adolescent care. The objective of this work is to divulge the Project itself, and to place professional nurses in activities that are directly related to the promotion and maintenance of children's and adolescent's rights as citizens inserted into a family and social context.