ABSTRACT
Resilience among runaway and homeless adolescents can mean at least two things. It may denote successful conventional adjustment despite early independence. This means successfully navigating through disadvantages and risks of growing up with few or no adult caretakers to provide protection, emotional, and economic support. Resilience also may mean successfully adapting to the vagaries of street life with its succession of revolving living situations that range from living on the streets, doubling up, staying with friends or relatives until their welcome runs out, transitional living programs, and group homes, all of which may be viewed as temporary. Runaway and homeless adolescents learn survival skills that are very different from those learned by nonrunaway adolescents. These may include being highly vigilant about one’s safety and security, a street-wise suspicion of other’s motives, the ability to defend oneself and one’s property, knowing how to find safe places to stay, and ways of procuring food when there is little or no money. This skill set, while requiring great acuity and innovation, represents the antithesis of most of the skills we typically associate with resilient adolescents.
