Resilience in schools

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Resilience in schools
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What is Resilience?

• The ability to bounce back from adversity
• The ability to withstand or recover quickly from
  difficult conditions
• An ability to recover from or adjust easily to
  misfortune or change

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Why is it important?

• Researchers have looked to answer 2 main
  questions when studying resilience
• Why is it that some children cope with adversity
  (lifes ups and downs) much better than others?
• What are the factors that lead to some children
  being more resilient than others?

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Risk Factors-Child

• Genetic influences
• Low IQ and learning disability
• Specific developmental delay
• Communication difficulty
• Difficult temperament
• Physical illness, especially if chronic and/or
  neurological
• Academic failure
• Low self-esteem
• Pearce (1993)

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Risk factors- family

• Overt parental conflict
• Family breakdown
• Inconsistent or unclear discipline
• Hostile and rejecting relationships
• Failure to adapt to child's changing
  developmental needs
• Abuse - physical, sexual and/or emotional
• Parental criminality, alcoholism personality
  disorder
• Parental psychiatric illness
• Death loss - including loss of friendships
• Pearce (1993)

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Risk factors- environmental

• Socio-economic disadvantage
• Homelessness
• Disaster
• Discrimination
• Other significant life events
• Pearce (1993)

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Protective factors

• Researchers have identified a number of factors
  that will help to protect a child and increase
  their level of resilience

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Individual factors

• Female
• Sense of competence and self efficacy
• Internal locus of control
• Empathy with others
• Problem-solving skills
• Communication skills
• Sociable
• Independent
• Reflective (not impulsive)
• Ability to concentrate on schoolwork
• Autonomy(girls)
• Emotional expressiveness(boys)
• Sense of humour
• Hobbies
• Willingness and capacity to plan

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Family Factors

• Close bond with at least one person
• Nurturance and trust
• Lack of separations
• Lack of parental mental health or addiction
  problems
• Encouragement for expression of feelings(boys)
• Encouragement for autonomy(girls)
• Close grandparents
• Family harmony
• Sibling attachment
• Four or fewer children
• Sufficient financial and material resources

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Community factors

• Neighbour and other non-kin support
• Peer contact
• Good school experiences
• Positive adult role models
• Daniel and Wassell, 2002

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What does a resilient child look like?

• The International Resilience Project uses a list
  of 15 items that indicate resilience in a child.
  (Grotberg 1997)
• The child has someone who loves him/her totally
  (unconditionally)
• The child has an older person outside the home
  she/he can tell about problems and feelings
• The child is praised for doing things on his/her
  own
• The child can count on his/her family being there
  when needed
• The child knows someone he/she wants to be like

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• The child believes things will turn out all right
• The child does endearing things that make people
  like her/him
• The child believes in power greater than seen
• The child is willing to try new things
• The child likes to achieve in what he/she does
• The child feels that what she/he does makes a
  difference in how things come out
• The child likes himself/herself
• The child can focus on a task and stay with it
• The child has a sense of humour
• The child makes plans to do things

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Further questions

• Now we know much more about risk and protective
  characteristics for resilience in children and
  young people, what does this mean for our
  everyday practice and how do we build resilience
  in schools?

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A resilience based approach

• focuses on building a protective network around
  children and young people
• Offers an alternative framework for intervention
• The focus being on the assessment of potential
  areas of strength within the childs whole system
• Daniel and Wassell 2002

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Why Schools

• More than any institution except the family,
  schools can provide the environment and
  conditions that foster resiliency in todays
  youth and tomorrows adults (Henderson and
  Milstein, 1996, p.2.).
• Schools offer a wide range of opportunities to
  boost resilience, including acting as a
  complementary secure base, providing many
  possibilities for developing self-esteem and
  efficacy and opportunities for constructive
  contact with peers and supportive adults
• Emmy Werner found that apart from the immediate
  family, a favourite teacher provided the most
  positive adult for resilient children. The
  teachers effects were more profound than just
  simple academic development (Zimmerman, May 1994,
  p.3).

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Some Resources

• The School Years - Assessing and promoting
  resilience in vulnerable children Daniel B and
  Wassell S 2002
• A Guide to Promoting Resilience in Children
  Strengthening the Human Spirit E Grotberg1995
• Healthy promoting Schools website
• Transitions in the Lives of Children and Young
  People Resilience Factors
• Tony Newman and Sarah Blackburn (Barnardo's
  Policy, Research and Influencing Unit) 2006

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Question

• As a group, look at some of the suggestions for
  building resilience in schools. Discuss your
  experience of where you have seen any of this
  type of work taking place.
• Choose up to 3 of the examples to feedback to the
  larger group