Family Resilience

Families can respond to risk in ways that can be characterised as resilient and they can marshal protective factors to assist in successful engagement with a range of stressful circumstances.

Families might be considered resilient when they cope successfully with significant adversity or stress or when they successfully re-orient their patterns of functioning to face future challenges (Mangham et al.1995).

According to one recent definition, family resilience:

“describes the path a family follows as it adapts and
prospers in the face of stress, both in the present and
over time. Resilient families respond positively to these
conditions in unique ways, depending on the context,
developmental level, the interactive combination of
risk and protective factors, and the family’s shared
outlook” (Hawley and DeHaan 1996, p. 293).

From Family Resilience and Good Child Outcomes: A Review of the Literature, a New Zealand Report by Ariel Kalil