Welcome
to all of you in our new mutual venture, Resiliency
In Action! We hope that this publication company
will serve as one vehicle for spreading the
Good Word about resiliency research and practice
and for networking all of us trying to live
and work from a paradigm of empowerment that
still remains the exception in our schools
and other youth-serving organizations and
in our workplaces. We do invite you to make
RIA yours by sending us your comments.
We know an axiom of working from a resiliency
perspective is "walking the talk!"
Resiliency
Background
In
the strictest sense, resiliency research
refers to a body of international cross-cultural,
lifespan developmental studies that followed
children born into seriously high-risk conditions
such as families where parents were mentally
ill, alcoholic, abusive, or criminal, or
in communities that were poverty-stricken
or war-torn. The astounding finding from
these long term studies was that at least
50% -- and often closer to 70% -- of youth
growing up in these high-risk conditions
did develop social competence despite exposure
to severe stress and did overcome the odds
to lead successful lives. Furthermore, these
studies not only identified the characteristics
of these "resilient" youth, several documented
the characteristics of the environments
-- of the families, schools, and communities
-- that facilitated the manifestation of
resilience.
Resiliency
Capacities
At
the most fundamental level, resiliency research
validates prior research and theory in human
development that has clearly established
the biological imperative for growth and
development that exists in the human organism
-- that is part of our genetic makeup --
and which unfolds naturally in the presence
of certain environmental attributes. We
are all born with innate resiliency, with
the capacity to develop the traits commonly
found in resilient survivors: social
competence (responsiveness, cultural flexibility,
empathy, caring, communication skills, and
a sense of humor); problem-solving (planning,
help-seeking, critical and creative thinking);
autonomy (sense of identity, self-efficacy,
self-awareness, task-mastery, and adaptive
distancing from negative messages and conditions);
and a sense of purpose and belief in a bright
future (goal direction, educational aspirations,
optimism, faith, and spiritual connectedness)
(Benard, 1991). The major point here is
that resilience is not a genetic trait that
only a few "superkids" possess, as some
journalistic accounts (and even several
researchers!) would have us believe. Rather,
it is our inborn capacity for self-righting
(Werner and Smith, 1992) and for transformation
and change (Lifton, 1993).
Environmental
Protective Factors
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 resiliency
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
(Benard, 1991).
Knowledge
Base For Practice
Resiliency
research clearly provides the prevention,
education, and youth development fields
with nothing less than a fundamentally different
knowledge base and paradigm for research
and practice, one offering the promise of
transforming interventions in the human
arena. It situates risk in the broader
social context of racism, war, and poverty
-- not in individuals, families, and communities
-- and asks how it is that youth successfully
develop in the face of such stressors. It
provides a powerful rationale for moving
our narrow focus in the social and behavioral
sciences from a risk, deficit, and pathology
focus to an examination of the strengths
youths, their families, their schools, and
their communities have brought to bear in
promoting healing and health.
The
examination of these strengths and the acknowledgment
that everyone has strengths and the capacity
for transformation gives the prevention,
education, and youth development fields
not only a clear sense of direction -- informing
us about "what works!" -- but also mandates
we move beyond our obsession with risk identification,
a statistically weaker practice that has
harmfully labeled and stigmatized youth,
their families, and their com-munities as
at-risk and high-risk, a practice that perpetuates
stereotyping and racism. Most importantly,
the knowledge that everyone has innate resilience
grounds practice in optimism and possibility,
essential components in building motivation.
Not only does this prevent the burn-out
of practitioners working with seriously
troubled youth but it provides one of the
major protective factors -- positive expectations
-- that when internalized by youth motivate
and enable them to overcome risks and adversity.
Focus
on Human Development
Resiliency
research also offers the prevention, education,
and youth development fields solid research
evidence for placing human development at
the center of everything we do. "Studies
of resilience suggest that nature has
provided powerful protective mechanisms
for human development" (Maston, 1994) that
"appear to transcend ethnic, social class,
geographical, and historical boundaries"
(Werner and Smith, 1992). This is precisely
because they address our common, shared
humanity. They meet our basic human needs
for love and connectedness; for respect,
challenge, and structure; and for meaningful
involvement, belonging, power, and, ultimately,
meaning. The development of resilience is
none other than the process of healthy human
development -- a dynamic process in which
personality and environmental influences
interact in a reciprocal, transactional
relationship. Resiliency research validates
prior theoretical models of human development,
including those of Erik Erikson, Urie Bronfenbrenner,
Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan,
Rudolf Steiner, Abraham Maslow, and Joseph
Chilton Pierce. While focused on different
components of human development -- psycho/social,
moral, spiritual, and cognitive -- at the
core of each of these approaches is an assumption
of the biological imperative for growth
and development (i.e., the self-righting
nature of the human organism) which unfolds
naturally in the presence of certain environmental
attributes. Stated simply by Maston, "When
adversity is relieved and basic human needs
are restored, then resilience has a chance
to emerge" (1994). The major implication
from resiliency research for practice is
that if we hope to create socially competent
people who have a sense of their own identity
and efficacy, who are able to make decisions,
set goals, and believe in their future,
then meeting their basic human needs for
caring, connectedness, respect, challenge,
power, and meaning must be the primary focus
of any prevention, education, and youth
development effort.
Emphasis
on Process -- Not Program!
Resiliency
research has clearly shown that fostering
resilience, i.e., promoting human development,
is a process and not a program. In fact,
Rutter encourages the use of the term protective
processes which captures the dynamic nature
of resilience instead of the commonly used
protective factors: "The search is not for
broadly defined factors but, rather, for
the developmental and
situational mechanisms involved in protective
processes" (1987). Resiliency research thus
promises to move the prevention, education,
and youth development fields beyond their
focus on program and what we do, to an emphasis
on process and how we do what we do; to
move beyond our fixation with content to
a focus on context.
The
fostering of resilience operates at a deep
structural, systemic, human level: at the
level of relationships, beliefs, and opportunities
for participation and power that are a part
of every interaction, every intervention
no matter what the focus. As McLaughlin
and her colleagues found in their extensive
study of inner-city youth-serving neighborhood
organizations, the organizations that engaged
youth and facilitated their successful development
had total diversity in program focus and
content, organizational structure, and
physical environment. What they shared was
an emphasis on meeting the needs of the
youth -- over programmatic concerns -- a
belief in the potential of each youth, a
focus on listening, and providing opportunities
for real responsibility and real work. These
researchers state, "We questioned the assumption
that what works has to be a particular program.
Our research shows that a variety of neighborhood-based
programs work as long as there is an interaction
between the program and its youth that results
in those youths treating the program as
a personal resource and a bridge to a hopeful
future" (1994). Schorr's earlier exploration
of successful prevention programs came to
similar conclusions: child-centered programs
based on the establishment of mutual relationships
of care, respect, and trust between clients
and professionals were the critical components
in program effectiveness (1988).
Summary
The
voices of those who have overcome adversity
-- be they in longitudinal studies or some
of the more recent ethnographic explorations
-- tell us loud and clear that ultimately
resilience is a process of connectedness,
of linking to people, to interests, and
ultimately to life itself. Rutter states
that, "Development is a question of linkages
that happen within you as a person and also
in the environment in which you live...
Our hope lies in doing something to alter
these linkages, to see that kids who start
in a bad environment don't go on having
bad environments and develop a sense of
impotency" (in Pines, 1984). Similarly,
James Coleman claims the most fundamental
task for parents, educators, and policy
makers is linking children into our social
fabric. Our task is "to look at the whole
fabric of our society and say, ŒWhere and
how can children be lodged in this society?
Where can we find a stable psychological
home for children where people will pay
attention to them?'" (in Olson, 1987). Resiliency
research shows the field that the blueprint
for building this sense of home and place
in the cosmos lies in relationships. To
Werner and Smith, effective interventions
must reinforce within every arena, the natural
social bonds -- between young and old, between
siblings, between friends -- "that give
meaning to one's life and a reason for commitment
and caring" (1982). Ultimately, research
on resilience challenges the field to build
this connectedness, this sense of belonging,
by transforming our families, schools, and
communities to become "psychological homes"
wherein youth can find mutually caring and
respectful relationships and opportunities
for meaningful involvement. Ex-gang member
Tito sums up most insightfully the message
of resiliency research: "Kids can walk around
trouble, if there is some place to walk
to, and someone to walk with" (McLaughlin
et al, 1994).
To
create these places and to be that "someone,"
we must, first and foremost, support our
own resilience. Building community and creating
belonging for youth means we must also do
this for ourselves. As Sergiovanni writes,
"The need for community is universal. A
sense of belonging, of continuity, of being
connected to others and to ideas and values
that make ourselves meaningful and significant
-- these needs are shared by all of us"
(1993). We, too, need the protective factors
of caring and respectful relationships and
opportunities to make decisions; without
these, we cannot create them for youth.
We
see learning as primarily a process of modeling;
thus walking our talk is a basic operating
principle of resilience work. We acknowledge
this is a major challenge for educators
and youth workers given we live in a society
that doesn't place a high priority on children
and youth nor on meeting the basic human
needs of its people. This makes our work
as caregivers of youth not only a challenge
but a vital necessity.
Ultimately,
resiliency research provides a mandate for
social change -- it is a clarion call for
creating these relationships and opportunities
in all human systems throughout the lifespan.
Changing the status quo in our society means
changing paradigms, both personally and
professionally, from risk to resilience,
from control to participation, from problem-solving
to positive development, from Eurocentrism
to multi-culturalism, from seeing youth
as problems to seeing them as resources,
from institution-building to community-building,
and so on. Personally, fostering resilience
is an inside-out, deep structure process
of changing our own belief systems to see
resources and not problems in youth, their
families, and their cultures. However, fostering
resilience also requires working on the
policy level for educational, social, and
economic justice.
Ultimately,
it means transforming not only our families,
schools, and communities but creating a
society premised on meeting the needs of
its citizens, young and old. Our greatest
hope for doing just this lies with our youth
and begins with our belief in them. We must
know in our hearts that when we create communities
wherever we are with youth that respect
and care for them as individuals and invite
their participation -- their critical inquiry,
dialogue, reflection, and action -- we are
creating the conditions that allow their
innate potential for social competence,
problem-solving, sense of identity and efficacy,
and hope for the future to unfold. And,
in the process, we are building a critical
mass of future citizens who will, indeed,
rescind the mean-spirited, greed-based,
control-driven social policies we now have
and recreate a social covenant grounded
in social and economic justice.
Reprinted
from the book Resiliency In Action,
now in its fourth printing!
Bonnie
Benard, M.S.W. is currently
a senior prevention specialist for WestEd,
an educational research lab in San Fransisco,
CA. . Bonnie has authored numerous articles
and papers on resiliency and provides speeches
and training on resiliency throughout the
country.
References
- Benard,
B. (1991). Fostering Resiliency in Kids:
Protective Factors in the Family, School,
and Community. Portland, OR: Western Center
for Drug-Free Schools and Communities.
- Lifton,
R. J. (1993). The Protean Self: Human
Resilience in An Age of Transformation.
New York: Basic Books.
- Maston,
A. (1994). Resilience in individual development:
Successful adaptation despite risk and
adversity. In Wang, M. and Gordon, E.
(eds. ). Educational Resilience in Inner-City
America: Challenges and Prospects. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- McLaughlin,
M. et al. (1994). Urban Sanctuaries: Neighborhood
Organizations in the Lives and Futures
of Inner-City Youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Olson,
L. (1987). A prominent boat rocker rejoins
the fray. Education Week, January 14,
14-17.
- Pines,
M. (1984). Resilient children: Why some
disadvantaged children overcome their
environments, and how we can help. Psychology
Today, March.
- Rutter,
M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and
protective mechanisms. American Journal
of Orthopsychiatry 57, 316-331.
- Schorr,
L. (1988). Within Our Reach: Breaking
the Cycle of Disadvantage. New York: Doubleday.
- Sergiovanni,
T. (1993). Building Community in Schools.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Werner,
E. and Smith, R. (1982, 1989). Vulnerable
but Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of
Resilient Children and Youth. New York:
Adams, Bannister, and Cox.
Werner, E. and Smith, R. (1992). Overcoming
the Odds: High-Risk Children from Birth
to Adulthood. New York: Cornell University
Press.
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