CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 InternationalViola, Lorian V2025-09-232025-09-20Viola, L.V. (2025) ‘Risks and resilience amongst rural honduran children’, Journal of Child and Family Studies. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-025-03162-4.1573-2843https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/14421https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-025-03162-4This study utilized a socioecological systems framework to examine the interplay of risk and resilience factors among children in middle childhood residing in a rural community in Honduras. In such contexts marked by structural disadvantage, a nuanced understanding of resilience is essential for mitigating the effects of adversity and fostering children’s potential. Utilizing an exploratory mixed-methods design, the research was conducted in three sequential phases. In the first phase (focus groups, N = 4), participants identified 12 context-specific childhood adversities and six associated signs of vulnerability. The second phase (risk screening, N = 175) found that children frequently encountered multiple, co-occurring risks, such as prolonged parental absence. In the third phase (survey, N = 84), resilience was assessed using the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-28), revealing that among children experiencing co-occurring risks, resilience was primarily relational in nature, with social networks providing essential protective resources. Logistic regression analyses identified four key protective factors within children’s social ecologies: three at the household level (consistent adult presence in the home and the regular availability of time and resources for academic tasks) and one at the community level (perceived safety during school commutes). Although the study’s relatively small sample size limits the generalizability of the findings, the results highlight the critical role of multisystemic influences in fostering positive outcomes for children exposed to high levels of adversity.enOpen Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ChildrenResilienceMixed MethodsSocial EcologyMixed MethodsArticle