This work discusses resilience processes and social support networks among youth based on narrative interviews with socioeconomically disadvantaged students from public schools in Fortaleza (Brazil). The aim of the study was to analyze how they told their life stories, particularly how they dealt with adversities, navigating their way to health-sustaining resources and well-being. Thematic and narrative analysis were applied to understand the way youth achieve personal, family, community and cultural resources and how these resources and strategies have a protective effect. Considering that resilience also refers to the availability of the resources sought special attention was directed to their communities' capacity to properly provide them. A meaningful result is their perception of public politics and services as ineffective or absent. Facing the decline of the public sphere, youth tend to take refuge in the family and in their own personal resources as means to stand up to their future.
social support networks; resilience; youth; social vulnerability