The innovation-decision process behind adopting our Farm and Farm Family Risk and Resilience Socio- Ecological Model will likely follow similar stages as the guide becomes known and used. Some innovative educators will adopt this approach to reducing stressors and increasing resilience quickly; others will need time to process before using the model and framework.
Risk and Resi l ience Theor ies
The risk and resilience theories included in this Guide come from multiple disciplines and use different models to illustrate ecological approaches. These models address individual, family, and business resilience and the ability for each to adapt to change. They should be combined with change theories.
Many stress and resilience theories focus on individuals. The following four theories expand the focus to include families in which individuals are embedded and the farming system.
Risk and Resilience Theory One. Patterson’s Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response Theory (FAAR) (Patterson, 2002 April and 2002 May) focuses on interactions of family members and on outcomes that can result in resilience. It integrates a focus on stress among individuals and how they adapt with the unit of the family, and how they collectively adapt to stressors. When intra-family interactions are positive, they contribute to physical and mental health, well-being, and sustainability of business ventures and vice-versa if they are not favorable.
Another way of explaining FAAR is that it looks at resilience building as a process of adapting to ordinary stressors and generating and using resources in response to extraordinary stressors. See Figure 9 .
We included the FAAR model as a well-accepted explanation of how crisis can put demands on families that cause an unbalance and how families respond to a crisis by adjusting to the demands, making meaning of their situation, and managing resources to handle the crisis. The model shows a return to equilibrium after adapting to life after the crisis. Farm families who experience extraordinary stressors that lead to a crisis can be guided through the process of adjustment and adaptation as part of their recovery. The model provides a guide for professionals from multiple disciplines to assist individuals and families who are facing stressors. Professionals can help individuals and families identify demands, meanings, and resources available and then guide them and families to find adaptations that will help them find and maintain acceptable balance. Also, educators can help individuals and families build the skills and resilience processes related to managing demands, communicating and discussing meanings around events and crises, as well as identifying resources and coping skills that will enhance their capabilities in a way that ties these skills to individual and family adjustment.
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