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Why do two individuals raised in similar environments, from the same socioeconomic background have varying degrees of successful coping skills later in life? Why are people often surprised at the ones who "made it out" of tragic early childhood circumstances to become well-adjusted, productive citizens? Often this innate characteristic of achievement beyond what circumstances would dictate is referred to as resiliency. Modern psychology advocates for research and training in this crucial field for children. If children are able to develop the skills needed to become resilient in crisis circumstances then children who encounter struggles will become stronger individuals overall.

History

The construction of the building blocks to resiliency were laid back in the 1970’s through various avenues. Emmy Werner has been proclaimed a ‘Resilience Pioneer’ in her research of children who overcome negative odds in comparison to other children who became victims to their circumstances. Werner, born in 1955, published a total of 5 books based on these children who rebound from their high-risk environments in Kaui, Hawaii.

Hardy Personality

Before the term ‘resiliency’ became popular, there was the concept of a ‘hardy personality’. Research done by Dr. Suzanne Kobasa and Salvatore Maddi describe the abilities of certain individuals to become resistant to stress or adversity due to their strong personality characteristics. They describe these characteristics of commitment, control and challenge are ingrained in a hardy personality type. This idea of personality would later translate in resiliency. Even later, additional researchers studied the 1994 hypothesis of Maddi and Khoshaba’s link of hardiness of personality to positive mental health

Learned Skills

More recently, the topic of resiliency is not simply reduced to an ingrained set of personality traits but can be a set of learned skills. Many researchers are advocating that what was an originally an unknown qualifier in a personality is not able to be a set of skills that can be taught, learned and executed in real life scenarios. In an article title, Bounce Back, details the thoughts of a psychiatrist who has studied resiliency for two decades Dr. Dennis Charney. Dr. Charney believes that anyone can train themselves to be resilient and there is not one path to resiliency that fits all personalities. Researchers are also studying protective factors that would ameliorate hardship in children.

Social Work Concepts

Resiliency is defined as the ability to bounce back in the face of adversity. Resiliency theory is based upon two models, the compensatory model and the protective factor model. The compensatory model explains that promotive factors neutralize risk exposure in a counteractive fashion. Thus, promotive factors operate in an opposite direction to a risk factor. There are two types if promotive factors, these are assets and resources, assets are positive factors within an individual such as self-efficacy and self-esteem. Resources are factors such as parental support, family relationships, programs that help children to learn and practice skills.

The protective factor model suggests that promotive assets or resources modify the relationship between a risk, another promotive factor and outcomes. Protective factors can reduce the effects of exposure to adversity.

Assessment

There are several tools designed to assess resilience in children. The Resiliency Scale for Children and Adolescents (RSCA) evaluate personal resiliency as experienced by youth aged 9-18 years in their everyday lives and expressed in their own words. The ClassMaps Survey assesses aspects of resiliency within the context of individual classrooms. The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment–Clinical Form (DECA-C) assesses strengths and problems of children aged 2-5 years as rated by their teachers and the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) represents strengths in children (kindergarten through eighth grade) as rated by their parents.

Intervention

Resilience-focus interventions seek to reinforce protective factors and in doing so foster the development of coping mechanisms and positive mental health . Interventions occur on the individual, family and community level. At the individual level, intervention is designed to help the child build social, emotional and personal competence, which is effective in building resilience. At the family level, it is important to help the child have a stable emotional connection and a stable relationship with a caregiver. Effective interventions at the family level include positive parenting training, family management, parent-child communication. These concepts are important to the building of resilience in children. At the community level, fostering staying connected with community resources and people in the neighborhood can help build collective resilience beyond individual and family factors.

Strengths

Resiliency focuses attention on positive contextual, social, and individual variables that interfere or disrupt developmental trajectories from risk to problem behaviors, mental distress, and poor health outcomes. These positive contextual, social, and individual variables are called promotive factors, operate in opposition to risk factors, and help youth overcome negative effects of risk exposure. identified two types of promotive factors: assets and resources. Positive factors that reside within individuals such as self-efficacy and self-esteem are defined as assets. Resources refer to factors outside individuals such parental support, adults mentors and youth programs that provide youth with opportunities to learn and practice skills. Assets and resources provide youth with the individual and contextual attributes necessary for healthy development .

Limitations

Resiliency research, supported by research on child development, family dynamics, school effectiveness, community development, and ethnographic studies capturing the voices of youth themselves, documents clearly the characteristics of family, school, and community environments that elicit and foster the natural resilience in children. These “protective factors,” the term referring to the characteristics of environments that appear to alter — or even reverse — potential negative outcomes and enable individuals to transform adversity and develop resilience despite risk, comprise three broad categories. Caring relationships convey compassion, understanding, respect, and interest, are grounded in listening, and establish safety and basic trust. High expectation messages communicate not only firm guidance, structure, and challenge but, and most importantly, convey a belief in the youth’s innate resilience and look for strengths and assets as opposed to problems and deficits. Lastly, opportunities for meaningful participation and contribution include having opportunities for valued responsibilities, for making decisions, for giving voice and being heard, and for contributing one’s talents to the community

Population

A targeted population for resilience is children. Children are not born with resilience, which is produced through the interaction of biological systems and protective factors in the social environment. The active ingredients in building resilience are supportive relationships with parents, coaches, teachers, caregivers, and other adults in the community. Watch this video to learn how responsive exchanges with adults help children build the skills they need to manage stress and cope with adversity.

It’s not possible to protect our children from the ups and downs of life. Raising resilient children, however, is possible and can provide them with the tools they to respond to the challenges of adolescence and young adulthood and to navigate successfully in adulthood. Despite our best efforts, we cannot prevent adversity and daily stress; but we can learn to be more resilient by changing how we think about challenges and adversities .

Implications for Social Work Practice

Two major areas of practice, child development and crisis intervention services, were early areas in which the concept of resiliency were first researched. Initial research focused on personal qualities, such as ego strengths, hardiness, plasticity, and survivorship. Later research expanded perspective on resilience to include not only personal qualities, both inherent and learned, but also ecological factors as well. Research has focused on helping to determine resilience-based treatment models, as well as to elicit the various components of resilience that need to be elicited and strengthened during child development, crisis prevention training, or post-trauma counseling. Research has been beneficial in proving that resilience is not a fixed trait in a person, rather it can be developed with the help of supportive relationships. Additionally, research shows positive growth and resilience development occurs more naturally in some while clinical interventions is necessary in others.

Research

Resilience based practice in social work, interchangeably referred to as strength-based approach, helps to promote quick recovery from adversities that children experience. An understanding of a resilience based approach helps reduce the risk factors and enhance the protective factors in the life of the child. In social work practice, social workers look for effective ways to decrease risk factors and increase protective factors in order to maximize the child’s resilience and make them aware of their strengths. One way to do so is asking the child to reflect on the positive ways they have coped with adversity. Focusing on a child’s strengths empowers them and allows for their personal resourcefulness so they are able to continue functioning and thriving in day to day life, even when faced with challenges. Group therapy, with a focus on strengths, has proven to be an effective method of enabling survivors to connect with sources of resilience. Group therapy options help children by providing them with supportive relationships and varying perspectives.

Policy

Resilience in children, and families, can be further enhanced by considering policy. To aid children in becoming stronger, more competent, and better functioning in adverse situations, structural deficiencies in society and social policies are considered. This ecosystem perspective incorporates individual personality traits, family protective and recovery factors, and community as well as ecological, cultural, and developmental factors. In the United States, family policy is lacking and therefore a lack of a collective vision for families. Attention to policies such as national health insurance, child support, employment wages, and tax credit would help increase children’s resilience.

Social Work Applications

Social workers encounter resiliency in many ways due to the nature of the work: helping persons suffering from a variety of hardships such as substance abuse, poverty, domestic violence, and discrimination. The children that social workers meet can display resiliency in a variety of ways, and this can be used as a strength and foundation to empower the child to rise above their situation and thrive. Through encouraging healthy living, positive choices, and advocating for themselves and others like them, social workers can influence a child’s behaviors and practices for the better, promoting resilience despite their circumstances.

Social Justice

A child or adolescents’ resiliency can be most tested in complex situations involving social justice. Even at a young age, these situations can have major impact on their lives and their views of the world, but they can also spark a change in others, even adults, as many people are inspired when children in particular persevere . A social worker’s duty, as related to social justice and resilience in children, is to educate the community and provide resources and support to those children, particularly from marginalized groups, that may be most affected by social injustices. These groups can include, but are certainly not limited to minorities, LGBTQ, single parent families, and immigrants . By connecting these children and their families with other professionals, such as non-profit advocates and legal counsel, and providing resources to bolster important skills, such as public speaking and writing, social workers can help build a child’s resilience towards social injustice situations that they may encounter in addition to introducing them to a supportive network of like-minded individuals they can turn to later in their lives.

Diversity

Problems with diversity can greatly hinder a person’s resiliency because they are, in some way, forced to believe that they are lesser than another person and pushed into adverse circumstances. Children can be unconsciously naïve about diversity in their surroundings until they’re into adolescents, but the effects of being exposed to a diverse group of people early on in their lives can help give them resilience into adulthood when diversity, unfortunately, may not be as prevalent. While they’re young, and well into adulthood, Social workers serve as advocates for children and encourage diversity in all areas of society, willing and able to support and represent those facing adversity in their schools, workplace, government, or anywhere else where representation may be needed .

Ethics

Social workers have to be conscious of limitations and boundaries at all times to remain ethically reliable in their relationship with their client, no matter if that person is a child or adult. Because of these boundaries, social workers can miss strengths that a child may display in more intimate settings or relationships, showing a resiliency that they may have previously been unaware of. On a similar note, children displaying resilient behaviors may also appear to be stronger than they are, causing the social worker or providers to miss the underlying issues that a child may be facing including depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues. It is important for social workers to be alert to both the obvious strengths and weaknesses of the children they work with, but also of the hidden abilities that may take time and rapport to uncover.