Risk and Resilience Among Children and Families: What Protective Factors are at Play?

Principal Investigator:
Roberta Greene, Ph.D.

Duration: 1/03-8/31/03

This project is a funded literature review that is part of a larger endeavor to produce a curriculum and distributive learning materials on resilience. An increasingly important area of study influencing social work practice, the concepts of risk and resilience are used to examine health-promoting behaviors across the life course and focuses on environments (multisystemic) that promote personal, family, and community well-being. The study concerns the questions, 'Why, despite the increased risk of racism and discrimination, do many children not surrender to the effects of oppression and the attendant inordinate environmental stress (Garmezy, 1991). What factors contribute to the family's ability to cope with such stress and to promote resilience in their children?' The literature review will concern protective factors-those factors that facilitate the family's ability to overcome adversity. Because social workers can use such information about how families foster success despite the high risk of discrimination to help others who are wrestling with these difficulties, there is a need for more research (Greif, Hrabowski, & Maton, 1998).

Sponsor:
Faculty Research Award, The University of Texas at Austin

Keywords: child welfare, families, children, youth