The purpose of this article is to help human service practitioners recognize and understand the stressor events and crises faced by rural low-income families as a basis for development of appropriate social support strategies. Identifying protective and recovery factors utilized by these families fills a gap in research on stress, crises, and resilience. The article is based on a study involving in-depth interviews of 34 rural mothers. Analysis revealed that these families used a variety of protective and recovery factors to manage stress and prevent crisis or cope with crises—indicators of their resiliency capacities. Implications, as corroborated by previous research for human service practitioners, are discussed.
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