The number of children living in families with incomes below the federal poverty level increased by 33 percent between 2000 and 2009, resulting in over 15 million children living in poverty. Some of these children are able to overcome this dark statistic and break the intergenerational transmission of poverty, offering hope to an otherwise bleak outlook, but this raises the question--how? In Fostering Resilience and Well-Being in Children and Families in Poverty, Dr. Valerie Maholmes sheds light on the mechanisms and processes that enable children and families to manage and overcome adversity. She explains that research findings on children and poverty often unite around three critical factors related to risk for poverty-related adversity: family structure, the presence of buffers that can protect children from negative influences, and the association between poverty and negative academic outcomes, and social and behavioral problems. She discusses how the research on resilience can inform better interventions for these children, as poverty does not necessarily preclude children from having strengths that may protect against its effects. Importantly, Maholmes introduces the concept of "hope" as a primary construct for understanding how the effects of poverty can be ameliorated. At the heart of the book are interviews with family members who have experienced adversity but managed to overcome it through the support of targeted programs and evidence-based interventions. Student leaders provide unique perspectives on the important role that parents and teachers play in motivating youth to succeed. Finally, professionals who work with children and families share their observations on effective interventions and the roles of culture and spirituality in fostering positive outcomes. Excerpts from these interviews bring research to life and help call attention to processes that promote hope and resilience. This book will be invaluable for policymakers, educators, and community and advocacy groups, as well as scholars and students in family studies, human development, and social work.

About the Author
Dr. Valerie Maholmes has devoted her career to studying factors that affect child developmental outcomes. Low-income minority children have been a particular focus of her research, practical, and civic work. She has been a faculty member at the Yale Child Study Center in the Yale School of Medicine where she held the Irving B. Harris Assistant Professorship of Child Psychiatry, an endowed professorial chair. While at Yale Dr. Maholmes worked in numerous capacities including Director of Research and Policy at the School Development Program. She has served on numerous professional boards and was also a member of the New Haven Board of Education where she served as Vice President/Secretary.

Reviews
The stories in the book illustrate how by fostering hope of a different life in young people they can, with support, use the resources around them, however scarce, to lift themselves out of poverty. * Trish Joscelyne, The Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy *
The book serves as a solid overview of strategies that can be used to motivate students to succeed, and it is a strong reminder that dropout prevention efforts would do well to examine social factors in a youths ultimate decision to drop out or remain in school... As opposed to youth-centered approaches, Maholmes book takes an environmentally based approach through the lens of hope, which may spur innovative ways of thinking about social factors that have heretofore been neglected in dropout prevention efforts (Ungar, Ghazinour, & Richter, 2013). Clearly, more work needs to be done before Maholmes premise is realized, and there is much to learn about the complex relation between hope and intrapersonal/social contexts. Nevertheless, Fostering Resilience and Well-Being in Children and Families in Poverty: Why Hope Still Matters is a welcome first-step to this end. * PsycCritiques *



Book Information
ISBN 9780199959525
Author Valerie Maholmes
Format Hardback
Page Count 236
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 236mm * 23mm