Intergenerational resilience in families affected by war, displacement, and migration: “It runs in the family”

Abstract

This article argues for an expansion of the focus on resilience as a characteristic of the individual to one of resilience as a familial and intergenerational experience. Drawing upon a case study of a young person’s tumultuous journey from war to refuge, the authors explore the impact, challenges, and opportunities inherent within the context of war-induced flight, migration, and resettlement, with special attention to individual, family and intergenerational resilience. The authors demonstrate that in the face of adversity and loss, war-affected families do not only run from war, but are also able to repair, grow, and even pass down their adaptive capacities from the “recovery repertoire” to the next generation. Given the capacity for intergenerational resilience, it is the authors’ contention that interventions and practices aimed to support the psychosocial well-being of war-affected children must therefore consider the prominence of not only daily stressors, but also protective factors at each level of youth’s socioecological system to bolster resilience. Additionally, we argue that social work practice and interventions must broaden service options to include attention to caregiver mental health along with the mental health of the war-affected child to capture the complexities of the intergenerational transmission of both trauma and resilience.