"facing a difficult period" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it when referring to a time when an individual, organization, or society is struggling with a problem or adversity. For example: After the company experienced a major downsizing, the workers were facing a difficult period.
They are facing a difficult period as William Nye, PPS to the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, who had a link with Westminster, having been at the Cabinet Office, is leaving Clarence House in March and Christopher Geidt, private secretary to the Queen, is going to be off for six months.
But with this initial investigation concluded, Britain faces a difficult period of soul searching over what to do about this evidence of extensive wrongdoing.
It hasn't looked good for your own popularity and you face a difficult period ahead with elections at the end of this year and 2016.
In the United States, those new emissions standards face a difficult period of public review from energy companies and lawmakers from coal-producing states.
Miliband has faced a difficult period since May's local and European elections, in which Labour failed to make the breakthroughs expected of an opposition party a year before a general election.
Venezuela now faces a difficult period with a new president who must assert control with a small and contested mandate even as he addresses chronic problems of inflation, high crime rates, crumbling infrastructure and an over-reliance on oil exports.
He is well-positioned to quickly analyze the situation jcpenney faces and take steps to improve the Company's performance". Mr. Ullman added, "While jcpenney has faced a difficult period, its legacy as a leader in American retailing is an asset that can be built upon and leveraged.
Mr. Bush's idea comes at a time when Kosovo, which is run by the United Nations but patrolled by NATO-led troops, is facing a difficult and even explosive period with the fall from power of the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic.
