A family resilience agenda for understanding and responding to parental incarceration.

Abstract

The majority of research on children with incarcerated parents has focused on documenting main effects and adjustment problems among children and families. Although the focus on problems has been crucial in mobilizing support for this population, the field is now at a critical turning point where researchers are calling for more attention to resilience. We argue here that a family resilience perspective is useful in considering child and family level processes that may mitigate the harmful impact of parental incarceration. In contributing to a family resilience agenda, we first review evidence that points to parental incarceration as a risk to children. We then examine research that highlights children's competence in the face of adversity as well as adaptive family processes, such as parenting and contact with the incarcerated parent, that contribute to children's well-being. We offer recommendations for methodological innovation aimed at assessing competence, evaluating interventions, and incorporating multimethod approaches that capture dynamic processes and developmental change. We conclude with practice and policy implications and emphasize how a family resilience agenda suggests the need to contextualize developmental and family strengths within broader systems of discrimination and oppression. Public Significance StatementParental incarceration is a widespread form of childhood disadvantage. It is crucial to mobilize support for this population of children and their families that moves beyond an examination of the risks associated with parental imprisonment and considers youth competence and adaptive family processes. A family resilience agenda highlights developmental and family strengths in families impacted by incarceration while also recognizing broader systems of discrimination and oppression.

“I Literally Roll With The Punches”: Black and Latinx Women Coping Through Parental Incarceration

“…Black and Latinx women relied heavily on social support, especially through friends and family. This finding aligns with research on the wellbeing of children of incarcerated parents, which offers the recommendation that access to social support enables resiliency and success through parental incarceration (Arditti & Johnson, 2020). In addition, it is worth mentioning that there were two participants who dealt with deportation.…”

Against the Odds: A Structural Equation Analysis of Family Resilience Processes during Paternal Incarceration

“…Based on the extant literature, we can reasonably conclude that PI overwhelmingly produces increased risks for youth and families across the world [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ], even among countries with extensive social safety nets [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 25 , 28 ]. Nevertheless, there is a significant lack of research that uses a resilience framework to examine family resilience processes in the context of PI [ 31 , 33 ]. Here, we define family resilience as the process by which families withstand and rebound from serious life challenges [ 34 , 35 , 36 ].…”

“…Masten and Coatsworth (1998) provided further family resilience research criteria: (1) the presence of a contextual risk (e.g., material hardship) that we would expect to cause family crisis and (2) a need to understand protective processes that prevent otherwise expected poor outcomes [ 39 ]. The lack of PI research on family resilience processes may be, in part, due to a lack of within-group resilience research, which may be better suited to identify specific resilience processes and attributes than comparative between-groups research (i.e., control or comparative group) [ 31 , 33 ].…”

“…Family resilience process research broadly provides an opportunity to examine the systemic interdependence of family members in shaping one another’s experiences and is crucial to better understanding the effects of PI on the family as a whole [ 15 ]. Advancing this line of research is imperative to our understanding of how youth and families may fare well, or even excel, in the context of PI [ 31 , 33 , 35 ]. Indeed, PI scholars have identified an urgent need for understanding resilience processes among families with an incarcerated parent [ 31 , 33 ].…”

“…Advancing this line of research is imperative to our understanding of how youth and families may fare well, or even excel, in the context of PI [ 31 , 33 , 35 ]. Indeed, PI scholars have identified an urgent need for understanding resilience processes among families with an incarcerated parent [ 31 , 33 ]. Resilience research findings have the potential to inform intervention programs just as much, if not more, than pathology-based research of youth experiencing PI [ 31 , 33 , 35 ].…”