Resiliency capacities among rural low-income families

The purpose of this article is to help human service practitioners recognize and understand the stressor events and crises faced by rural low-income families as a basis for development of appropriate social support strategies. Identifying protective and recovery factors utilized by these families fills a gap in research on stress, crises, and resilience. The article is based on a study involving in-depth interviews of 34 rural mothers. Analysis revealed that these families used a variety of protective and recovery factors to manage stress and prevent crisis or cope with crises-indicators of their resiliency capacities. Implications, as corroborated by previous research for human service practitioners, are discussed.