“The family has perhaps the greatest The family has perhaps the greatest impact on individual development across impact on individual development across all stages, influencing not only individual all stages, influencing not only individual and family life, but also that of the and family life, but also that of the community in which it is foundcommunity in which it is found,”

(der Kinderen & Greeff, 2003, p. 86)

Some thrive in spite of it all.

Some studies posit several factors for influencing this difference: personality variations, good parenting, social support, availability of adequate resources and family resilience

Family resilience is the ability of a familial unit to withstand and rebound from adversity (Walsh, 2003).

There is a dearth of contextually-based family practices which are successful in enhancing family resilience which could result in a supportive environment promoting optimal development

The promotion and strengthening of family life is central to the overall stability and general wellbeing of South Africa and is linked to National Development Goals (DSD, 2013)

How are these challenges addressed?

Can we improve resilience within families?

Flexible

Connected

Socio-eco resource support

Shares clear & consistent messages

Express emotions openly

Effective problem-solving

Making meaning of crises

Maintaining a positive outlook

Valuing transcendence and spirituality

There are three components which typically characterise PAR: › the shared ownership of research projects; › community-based analysis of social problems › a vision of community action (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2008).›

practical, collaborative, reactive and emancipatory (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2008).

Community members will be involved from the assessment to the design and development of the programme

• Entails using knowledge obtained from the literature as well as key stakeholders to develop, implement and evaluate an intervention in five stages (van Oostrom et al. 2007):

• Stage 1: Defining specific intervention objectives

• Stage 2: Select suitable theoretical methods and practical strategies

• Stage 3: Designing a programme plan

• Stage 4 & 5: Design an implementation and evaluation plan