Reply to 2 of your classmates' threads from the last module/week. Each reply must be at least 200 words and meaningfully expand the discussion by focusing on the influence of community ecology on both risk and protective factors. Discussion 1   Within the microsystem, family exists as a key component to understanding the adolescent growth and development process.  Family influences adolescents’ thoughts, behaviors, attitudes and views toward life.  The family system represents the members of a family, who function interdependently, while focusing on maintaining balance and influencing each other equally.  Maintaining balance within the family system is essential to the family’s functioning.  Families learn to function through their family life cycles, or progressive stages of development.  During the stages of development, families adapt to specific developmental tasks that prepare them for future stages (McWhirter, McWhirter, McWhirter & McWhirter, 2017).  Undergoing changes, challenges and crises are inevitable as families transition through the family life cycle.   The family’s ability to continue to propel forward amid the changes, challenges and crises speaks to the family’s resiliency.  A family’s resiliency may be strengthened by protective factors or may be weakened by risk factors.      In the lives of adolescents, protective factors are characteristics that occur to build resilience and lessen the chances of unhealthy growth and development.  Youth who experience positive parent-child relationships display resiliency.  Research indicates that of all the factors that build resilience, good parenting is most important.  Possessing a supportive, consistent primary caregiver is a significant factor in youth’s development (Weir, 2017).  Additionally, youth who display a healthy concept of self, a strong cultural identity and a firm belief/value system, while experiencing success at school, economic stability and strong social supports, exhibit resilience through the stages of life.  Outside of the family system, social supports within the community work to build resilience.  Strong social supports act as a buffer for adolescents facing trouble and stress.  Adolescents with greater social support will be less likely to become depressed than those with less support (Camara, Bacigalupe & Padilla, 2017).  Therefore, youth’s resilience depends upon their ability to draw from many resources.  These resources or protective factors serve as interventions to point youth down a promising path (Weir, 2017).        Opposite of protective factors are risk factors, which serve to weaken adolescents’ chances of healthy growth and development.  Risk factors contribute to problematic outcomes in the lives of youth.  Youth who experience a negative family environment, such as physical crowding, a lack of supervision, poor parenting, divorce, substance abuse and domestic violence are less likely to exhibit resilience during the stages of life.  Instead, th ...

1. Reply to 2 of your classmates' threads from the last
module/week. Each reply must be at least 200 words and
meaningfully expand the discussion by focusing on the
influence of community ecology on both risk and protective
factors.
Discussion 1
Within the microsystem, family exists as a key component to
understanding the adolescent growth and development process.
Family influences adolescents’ thoughts, behaviors, attitudes
and views toward life. The family system represents the
members of a family, who function interdependently, while
focusing on maintaining balance and influencing each other
equally. Maintaining balance within the family system is
essential to the family’s functioning. Families learn to function
through their family life cycles, or progressive stages of
development. During the stages of development, families adapt
to specific developmental tasks that prepare them for future
stages (McWhirter, McWhirter, McWhirter & McWhirter,
2017). Undergoing changes, challenges and crises are
inevitable as families transition through the family life cycle.
The family’s ability to continue to propel forward amid the
changes, challenges and crises speaks to the family’s
resiliency. A family’s resiliency may be strengthened by
protective factors or may be weakened by risk factors.
In the lives of adolescents, protective factors are
characteristics that occur to build resilience and lessen the
chances of unhealthy growth and development. Youth who
experience positive parent-child relationships display
resiliency. Research indicates that of all the factors that build
resilience, good parenting is most important. Possessing a
supportive, consistent primary caregiver is a significant factor
in youth’s development (Weir, 2017). Additionally, youth who
display a healthy concept of self, a strong cultural identity and a
firm belief/value system, while experiencing success at school,

2. economic stability and strong social supports, exhibit resilience
through the stages of life. Outside of the family system, social
supports within the community work to build resilience. Strong
social supports act as a buffer for adolescents facing trouble and
stress. Adolescents with greater social support will be less
likely to become depressed than those with less support
(Camara, Bacigalupe & Padilla, 2017). Therefore, youth’s
resilience depends upon their ability to draw from many
resources. These resources or protective factors serve as
interventions to point youth down a promising path (Weir,
2017).
Opposite of protective factors are risk factors, which serve
to weaken adolescents’ chances of healthy growth and
development. Risk factors contribute to problematic outcomes
in the lives of youth. Youth who experience a negative family
environment, such as physical crowding, a lack of supervision,
poor parenting, divorce, substance abuse and domestic violence
are less likely to exhibit resilience during the stages of life.
Instead, they become at-risk youth whose families cannot model
resiliency. Their family systems may include parents who
suffer from mental health challenges. In this manner, youth
must concern themselves with the possibility of mental health
being perpetuated in their own lives. Living with this level of
dysfunction not only reinforces a poor sense of self, but also a
lack of purpose in life. These risk factors stifle connectedness
as youth fear exposing their dysfunctional families. Children
and adolescents who lack connectedness undergo social
isolation and rejection (CDC, 2011a; Karcher, 2004 from
McWhirter et al., 2017). Subsequently, with a lack of
connectedness, support and purpose in life, at risk youth often
display inadequate coping skills and poor decision making,
which may encourage participation in risky behaviors. For
these youth, the community is not a source of social support,
but rather a reservoir for risky behavior. They do not expect
much of themselves, so they are not concerned about
participating in at risk behaviors, such as substance abuse,

3. dropping out of school, unsafe sexual behavior and suicide
(McWhirter et al., 2017). With no concept of resiliency, these
youth have low self-efficacy expectations and see the future as
limited.
Camara, Maria, Bacigalupe, Gonzalo, & Padilla, Patricia.
(2017). The role of social support in adolescents: are
you helping me or stressing me out?, International Journal of
Adolescence and Youth, 22:2, 123-
136, DOI: 10.1080/02673843.2013.875480
McWhirter, J.J., McWhirter, B.T., McWhirter, E.H., &
McWhirter, R.J. (2017). At-risk youth: A comprehensive
response for counselors, teachers, psychologists, and human
service professionals (6th ed.). Belmont, TN: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Co.
Weir, K. (2017, September). Maximizing children's
resilience. Monitor on Psychology, 48(8).
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/09/cover-resilience
Discusion 2
Ungar et al. suggest resilience may account for both proximal
and distal factors that predict successful development under
adversity using a multisystemic social-ecological theory of
resilience that contributes to positive development under stress
among different contexts and cultures, and propose what is
adaptive in one context or during one developmental period may
be maladaptive during another (Ungar, Ghazinour, & Richter,
2013). As resilience is conceptually linked to risk, it is logical
that the nature of that risk will have sociohistorical (temporal)
regarding changing social, economic and political contexts
dimensions (McWhirter, McWhirter, McWhirter, & McWhirter,
2017).
Adaptive functioning in the face of adversity is not only
dependent on the characteristics of the individual, but also
greatly influenced by processes and interactions arising from
the family within the environment. Individuals who have been

4. exposed to a wide variety of life experiences, including
exposure to modeling of behaviors exhibited by parents and
siblings when positively engaging adversity, benefit from those
exposures when confronted with their own adversarial
challenges (Clinton, Clark, & Straub, 2010). Protective Factors
within the family and community can assist with and encourage
resiliency in adolescents include strong cultural identity, access
to health care, stable housing, economic stability, social
support, affiliation with a supportive religious or faith
community (McWhirter, McWhirter, McWhirter, & McWhirter,
2017). These factors counteract and deter the negative risk
factors they currently face or will face in the future such as
violence, gang activity, divorce, or any number of
overwhelming obstacles they are faced with.
Last week’s readings from McWhirter et al. provided the
metaphorical at-risk tree to illustrate the resilience components
associated within an ecological framework to assist in
associating risk-factors in adolescents (McWhirter, McWhirter,
McWhirter, & McWhirter, 2017). In this analogy the roots of
the tree represented the factors within an individual’s ecosystem
including family, school, and peer groups; which serve as
anchors and provide a network of support by feeding the
individual sustenance to survive (McWhirter et al., 2017). The
behaviors, attitudes, and skills (referred to as the trunk) of the
individual provide support for the tree’s branches that are
indicative of the youth’s adaption to society. Families offer
positive influences through faith, forgiveness, love, and
attachments that become protective factors (insulators) that
buffer negative risk factors as well as serve as a basis for family
unity (McWhirter et al., 2017).
I am reminded of God’s promises regarding resilience through
our faith in the verse from James 1:2-4 , “Consider it pure joy,
my brothers, when you are involved in various trials, because
you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But
you must let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be
mature and complete, lacking nothing” (NIV).

5. References
Clinton, T., Clark, C., & Straub, J. (2010). The Quick Reference
Guide to Counseling Teenagers. Grand Rapids: Baker Books.
McWhirter, L., McWhirter, E., McWhirter, B., & McWhirter, A.
(2017). At Risk Youth: A Comprehensive Response for
Counselors, Teachers, Psychologists, and Human Service
Professionals: Sixth Edition. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Ungar, M., Ghazinour, M., & Richter, J. (2013). Annual
Research Review: What is the Resilience Within the Social
Ecology of Human Development? The Journal of Child
Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(4), 348-366.
Weaver, J. M., & Schofield, T. J. (2015, 02 29). Mediation and
Moderation of Divorce Effects on Children's Behavior
Problems. Journal of family psychology: JFP, 29(1), 39-48.