Building family resilience in the wake of a global pandemic: Looking back to prepare for the future.

Abstract

Public Significance StatementFamily resilience describes processes whereby children and families respond to adversity by deepening family bonds, fostering a positive outlook, and adapting to changing demands and circumstances in a way that fosters positive growth. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, children and families continue to experience relational, social, and economic stressors, with mental health needs that far surpass available services. Family-centred and accessible mental health care services that aim to strengthen family resilience are needed for individuals, families, and societies in order to heal from the pandemic and prepare for future global challenges.

Resilience in development: Pathways to multisystem integration

“…Shoychet et al (this issue) carried out a systematic review of publications that test Prime's COVID-19 Family Disruption Model (FDM) of risk and protective processes during the pandemic (see Prime et al, 2020Prime et al, , 2023. FDM represents a cascade model for understanding how adversity can disrupt family functioning with spillover consequences for child or youth well-being and development.…”

“…Although the FDM was developed for the COVID-19 pandemic, the concepts and results this paper describes have broad implications for future threats, such as climate change, that will also threaten caregiving and family function. It is crucial for communities and societies to prepare for future disasters by building family resilience (Prime et al, 2023). Wang et al (this issue) utilized a daily-diary approach in a national sample of U.S. adolescents to examine the interplay of remote learning with perceived parent support and stress.…”