Identifying Risks and Resilience- Homeless to Harvard

Identifying Risks and Resilience- Homeless to Harvard

My selected film was the movie titled Homeless to Harvard. The main character of the movie is Liz Murray. Together with her sister, they live with their parents. Her mother is a drug addict and schizophrenic. Her father is irresponsible and unconcerned about his whole family. The family lives in a small apartment in New York City. Their house is untidy and poorly maintained. The bathtub is clogged. Consequently, Liz has to stand in a bucket to avoid the stagnant water. Liz is an intelligent girl, as evidenced by the good grades obtained at school. However, she has minimal interest in academics and misses classes.

The diminished interest in academic work can be attributed to various factors. Both Liz’s parents are unconcerned about her progress. Her teacher points out that she stinks. This is because she has to self-clean without parental guidance. Furthermore, Liz is always hungry at school and sometimes has to scavenge from dumpsters. Her mother’s addiction problem forces her to divert their money for upkeep to drugs, leaving them starved. Liz’s hardships are compounded when her mother decides to go and stay at their grandfather’s place. Liz is left alone with her father, who fails to provide proper parental care. Liz is always late for school and even misses classes. This causes the relevant authorities to send her to an orphanage. Do you need help with your assignment ? Get in touch with us at eminencepapers.com.

Liz decides to visit her grandfather’s place to see her mother. She takes over the role of being a caregiver to her alcoholic and ailing mother. Disagreements with her grandfather triggered her homelessness at the age of 15 years. Liz lives in the streets begging, shoplifting, and engaging in leisure activities. Homelessness exposes Liz to tough environmental conditions, and this significantly interferes with her academic work.

Risk and Resilience Approach to Development

Risk refers to the etiology of undesirable outcomes in development. Risks can bring up significant changes in a person’s behaviour and routine functioning and development. Risks are factors that can be quantified. Resilience refers to the ability of a system or a person to successfully fit into disturbances that risk the functional, developmental, or survival of the person (Keyes, 2019). The ability of a person to adapt to potential risks is determined by various factors. The extent of dependability or connection and external factors determine the adaptability (Masten & Barnes, 2018). Furthermore, cognition and personality traits have been reported to influence resilience. A broad capacity of resilience exists because of the evolution of multifaceted systems that increase the chances of adapting to a challenge.

Resilience is a complex phenomenon because it changes based on the context and the person during development. Factors that favour resilience can be categorized into those related to the individual, family, or community (Colley, 2011). Factors related to the individual include a high IQ, the ability to solve problems, and personalities such as autonomy, assertiveness, receptiveness, and extroversion (Laser & Nicotera, 2021). Factors related to the family include acceptable parenting, strong family units, unity, and desirable socioeconomic status. Factors related to the community include the presence of support programs, good education systems, and the presence of counselling sessions (Keyes, 2019). Therefore, protective factors should be adopted to ensure that favourable adaptions are achieved during the developmental period.

Main Character’s Protective Factors

Liz has various protective factors that contributed to her resilience. Individual factors include a high IQ, problem-solving ability, autonomy, and being outgoing. She scores high grades at school despite having the many challenges experienced at home. Furthermore, she completed four-year course work within coursework within two years and always topped her class. Her autonomy is demonstrated by her ability to decide to return to school after her mother’s death. She did not wait for anybody to advise her to do so.

Her ability to solve problems is evident when she convinced her father to accompany her to school and append his signature and his address. This was required before the resumption of academic work. Liz is outgoing because she easily fits in with her new colleagues and instructors at school. Other than being young, there are no individual factors that predispose Liz to hardships.

Risk and Protective Factors in the Microsystems

Risk factors present in Elizabeth’s family include poor parenting, lack of family unity, and low socioeconomic status. Her parents were never concerned about her well-being and failed to provide basic parental care. The family was never in harmony because her father was always unbothered and irresponsible. The low socioeconomic status is depicted by their living conditions, such as a dysfunctional bathtub. Protective factors at school include the instructors, who were always concerned about her well-being. Her teacher asks her to maintain her hygiene, finish her assignments, and stop being late and missing classes. This is designed to better her school performance.

Liz’s neighbourhood had protective factors such as a good support program that ensured student follow-up. When her father is unable to provide proper care, authorities move Liz to an orphanage. However, risk factors also exist. In the orphanage, Liz is bullied, and she has to endure violent experiences. Furthermore, Liz is involved in activities such as shoplifting when she becomes homeless and meets Chris. Homeless children use drugs, and this increases the chances of Liz getting hooked up to drugs.

Risk and Protective Factors in the Mesosystem

The risk factors present include the inability of Liz’s parents to establish a follow-up with her progress at school. Both parents were not unconcerned. Her teacher would make recommendations such as proper hygiene, completion of homework, and school attendance. However, none of the parents enforced them because of their detachment. Protective factors existed in the neighbourhood and school. The school reported to the relevant authorities that Liz was not attending school and finishing her work. This prompted Liz to be transferred from her father’s custody to the orphanage. Therefore, the school and neighbourhood put in efforts to ensure Liz’s well-being.

Risk and Protective Factors Present in the Exosystem

Lack of parental employment and social support are the main risk factors. Liz’s parents were unemployed, and this contributed to their low socioeconomic status. Her mother was a drug addict, whereas her father was always watching television. Her parents failed to provide any social support because they were always absent in her life. The policies at the school and community provided a protective factor. A policy that requires close follow-up of a student helped to track down Liz and temporarily change her custodian. The school worked in concert with the community to identify an irresponsible parent. This sufficed to transfer Liz to an orphanage with the intention of proper care provision.

Risk and Protective Factors in the Macrosystem

Poverty is the risk factor present in this system. Liz’s parents and their neighbourhood demonstrate characteristics of low socioeconomic status. Her parents live in a small, untidy, and poorly maintained apartment. This is evidenced by the presence of a dysfunctional bathtub. Inability Liz is unable to get a meal, and on occasion, she picks food from dumpsters. The buildings in her locality are old and poorly maintained. At school, Liz plays in muddy water with her friend, Chris. The presence of an orphanage could also indicate the likelihood of poverty in the locality. Furthermore, the presence of many homeless children suggests that their families are poor or have weak ties. The presence of support programs for children with irresponsible parents offers a protective factor.

Relationship Between Individual and Contextual Risk and Protective Factors

Liz obtained a positive sense of self after the demise of her mother. Before this, Liz had fallen out with her grandfather and decided to become homeless. She would visit her mother frequently. Furthermore, she knew the exact location where her mother would engage in drugs. Liz’s protective factor of autonomy and problem-solving ability emerged immediately after her mother’s death. Despite being homeless, she decided to focus on her academic work. She even convinced her father to append his signature, provide contact and address to facilitate her enrolment. Her intelligence helped her score good grades and even win a scholarship to Harvard University.

Negative Outcomes Endured

Liz has to endure the pain that accompanied the loss of her mother. She has to live with the fact that her mother was a drug addict who died from HIV and AIDS. She still has to endure the fact that both of her parents were absent in her life when she needed them most. Furthermore, she had to become homeless at the age of 15 years. Therefore, despite Liz’s resilience, she still endures these happenings.

How a Risk-Resilience Framework Affects Perception

A person with a better risk-resilience framework is perceived to have desirable individual, familial, and societal protective factors. In this context, Liz has a good risk-resilience framework. This makes me consider Liz as a person who never gives up and demonstrates a great perseverance threshold. Furthermore, it makes me appreciate the fact that she possesses individual protective factors such as the ability to problem-solve, high IQ, and desirable personality traits such as autonomy and extroversion. Liz inspires people who are facing difficulties not to give up but to focus on the prize.

References

Colley, B. (2011). Child Development: A Practitioner’s Guide in Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (Vol. 16, Issue 2). https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2011.569422

Keyes, C. L. M. (2019). Risk and Resilience in Human Development: An Introduction. Special Issue: Risk and Resilience in Human Development, December 2004, 223–227. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203764374-1

Laser, J.A., & Nicotera, N. (2021). Working with Adolescents: A Guide for Practitioners. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aqtA1t6FtIVf14xLureqnM_fJtT_nkCC/view

Masten, A. S., & Barnes, A. J. (2018). Resilience in Children: Developmental Perspectives. Children, 5(7), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Watch one of the suggested films below that portrays a resilient individual in childhood and/or adolescence despite exposure to multiple risk factors. After you watch the film, write a paper that describes the main character applying a risk and resilience perspective. Identify both risk and protective factors that are present in each ecological system. Be sure your paper includes the following components:

Identifying Risks and Resilience- Homeless to Harvard

Provide a general description of the main character and the hardship he/she has experienced.

Describe the risk/resilience approach to development.

Identify the main character’s individual protective factors (internal assets/ individual attributes)? Were there any individual factors that made him/her more vulnerable to hardship?

Identify any risk and protective factors that were present in the main character’s microsystems, including family, school, and neighborhood.

Identify any risk and protective factors in the main character’s mesosystem, including relationships between family, school, and neighbourhood.

Identify any risk and protective factors that were present in the main character’s exosystem, such as parent employment, parent social support, policies/ administration at school or in the community.

Describe any risk and protective factors that were present in the macrosystem, such as racial inequality, poverty, and/or patriarchy.

Are there relationships between individual and contextual risk/protective factors (i.e., Did an attachment relationship with a caregiver lead to positive sense of self?).

Determine if there are any negative outcomes the main character still endures despite the character’s resilience.

Indicate how a risk/resilience framework can affect how you view the main character.