Children experiencing homelessness
are facing difficult and stressful challenges everyday, such as poverty,
residential instability, violence, nutrition imbalance, and often a lack of
everyday basic needs. Organizations such
as Faces without Places attempt to combat these stressors by providing them
with material aid such as alternative transportation or school supplies;
however by doing so, they also provide them with an intangible resource:
resilience.
Resilience refers to the ability to
“bounce back” from stressful or difficult situations, such as homelessness. Resilience is particularly interesting because
often times, it allows individuals in difficult situations to overcome their
troubles or act in a way that improves their situation. Finding resilience in children experiencing
homelessness provides organizations like Faces without Places with hope that
their efforts are useful and are helping to fight and prevent homelessness from
continuing.
According to the Nation Center for
Homeless Education’s research summary report on resilience in at Risk Children
and Youth, resilience has been found in children who have certain “promotive
factors.” These factors include:
positive relationships with caring adults, intelligence, problem solving
skills, achievement motivation, effective teachers and schools and lastly,
belief that life has meaning. Their research also concludes that agencies or
systems that provide after school and informal learning programs were also
promoting factors of resilience.
The recent research on resilience
gives us hope that the work we do at Faces without Places is helping to promote
resilience in young children experiencing homelessness. We hope to break the cycle of homelessness and
by giving them a better chance at overcoming their situation, Faces without
Places is able to do just that.
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