Risk And Adjustment: A Study Of Family Resilience In The Fact Of Unattended Children

The fact of unattended child is a child who has one or both living parents,but who has no or is unable to carry out his or her parental responsibilities and lives with grandparents,other relatives and unrelated persons.The term "no one" refers to the lack of a legal first guardian,especially without the guardianship of parents.This study uses Froma Walsh's critical process of family resilience as a theoretical framework,and uses in-depth interviews and participant observation to reproduce the process of growing up in a de facto unaccompanied child's family,and to analyse the mechanisms by which family resilience is generated in the interaction of disruptive and protective factors.The findings of the study are as follows:Firstly,the disruptive factors of family resilience in the fact of unattended children are the multiple risks faced by them in the absence of the guardianship role as a stressor: children are at risk of losing their perceived family integrity,emotional experience and socialisation support dynamics;caregivers are at risk of inappropriately giving inadequate conceptions of educational subjects,educational interaction styles and emotional experiences;and the family system is at risk of fractured family structures,broken family functions and poor home-school community The family system is at risk of fractured family structures,broken family functions and poor interaction between home and school.Secondly,in the face of multiple family risks,the protective factors built up by the family's belief systems,organisational models and communication interactions offer potential for the development of families with the fact of unattended children.The family's belief system includes positive future expectations,interpretation of the meaning of risks and assessment of potential;the organisational model includes adaptive changes in the family structure,the maintenance of a sense of connection among family members and the linking of social and economic resources;the communication interaction includes clear expression of words and actions,open sharing of emotions and democratic negotiation of issues.Thirdly,the resilience of families with high levels of the fact of unattended children is characterised by stages of development.Unlike low resilience families,which are closed,passive and materialistic,high resilience families have five stages of development: survival,adaptation,acceptance,becoming strong and helping others to develop fully.On this basis,social work is targeted at restoring the internal family system by reshaping the family's belief system,focusing on children's emotional needs and adjusting and rebuilding family roles,and reconnecting the external family system with the government,community,schools and social organisations to further explore the pathway of social work intervention to enhance the resilience of families with the fact of unattended children.