This article presents an overview of a family resilience framework developed for clinical practice, and describes its advantages. Drawing together findings from studies of individual resilience and research on effective family functioning, key processes in family resilience are outlined in three domains: family belief systems, organizational patterns, and communication/problem-solving. Clinical practice applications are described briefly to suggest the broad utility of this conceptual framework for intervention and prevention efforts to strengthen families facing serious life challenges.

The concept of resilience, the ability to withstand and rebound from crisis and adversity, has valuable potential for research, intervention, and prevention approaches aiming to strengthen couples and families. Resilience has been viewed as residing within the individual, with the family often dismissed as dysfunctional This article advances a systemic view of resilience in ecological and developmental contexts and presents the concept of family resilience, attending to interactional processes over time that strengthen both individual and family hardiness. Extending our understanding of normal family functioning, the concept of family resilience offers a useful framework to identify and fortify key processes that enable families to surmount crises and persistent stresses. There are many pathways in relational resilience, varying to fit diverse family forms, psychosocial challenges, resources, and constraints. Shared beliefs and narratives that foster a sense of coherence, collaboration, competence, and confidence are vital in coping and mastery. Interventions to strengthen family resilience have timely relevance for weathering the rapid social changes and uncertainties facing families today.

This article presents the core principles and value of a family and community resilience-oriented approach to recovery from traumatic loss when catastrophic events occur. In contrast to individually based, symptom-focused approaches to trauma recovery, this multisystemic practice approach contextualizes the distress in the traumatic experience and taps strengths and resources in relational networks to foster healing and posttraumatic growth. The intertwining of trauma and traumatic losses is discussed. Key family and social processes in risk and resilience in traumatic loss situations are outlined. Case illustrations, model programs, and intervention guidelines are described in situations of community violence and major disasters to suggest ways to foster family and community resilience. Organization, 1972.) In contrast, a multisystemic, resilience-oriented practice approach recognizes the widespread impact of major trauma, situates the distress in the extreme experience, attends to ripple effects through relational networks, and aims to strengthen family and community resources for optimal recovery.

This paper presents the funeral ceremony as one of the factors helping to preserve networks and relationships among families in the countryside. The development of family relationships in the countryside is discussed on the basis of an analysis of attendance at funeral ceremonies in model areas of the Czech countryside. The precise forms assumed by funeral ceremonies (church funeral vs. civil funeral, funeral without ceremony, attendance, associated traditions) differ in relation to culture on the state, regional and local levels as well. The differentiation to forms of funeral ceremony and burial processes depends on a number of factors, of which the main ones are religiosity rate and community size at regional level and tradition at local level. In the Czech regions, mainly in the countryside, the extraordinary attendance at funeral ceremonies is typical. Attendance at a funeral ceremony via a representative of the family is considered a social duty. This tradition of family get-togethers for funeral ceremonies has been maintained from generation to generation. Through it families that may now be scattered are able to keep together the network of relationships of inhabitants in countryside.