Abstract
The resilience of children and youth is an increasingly important area of research. Young people
growing up in distressed communities, characterised by poverty, crime and family troubles, are
particularly vulnerable. Resilience can assist these young people in navigating through these
challenges towards independent living, particularly as they transition out of adolescence and into
young adulthood. Children in South Africa are almost universally vulnerable, but children growing
up in residential care facilities and children from poverty stricken communities are particularly in
need of resilience. This quantitative study of 575 South African children compared their resilience
in terms of individual, family and community protective factors across seven sites, including child
and youth care centres, schools in poor communities and schools in middle class suburban
communities. Contrary to expectations, the study found that children in one of the children’s homes
and one of the poor communities had the highest levels of resilience. Moreover, all but one of the
sites scored very high on at least one of the resilience variables, suggesting unique profiles of
resilience across the sites. Practice implications for child and family social work are discussed.