Befriending Network Scotland Befriending

1
Befriending Network ScotlandBefriending
Resilience.
2
The concept of resilience

• Builds on a body of evidence about good, rather
  than bad outcomes.
• Provides a theoretical underpinning for the
  considerable amount of creative work that people
  are already doing.

3
resilience

• Defined both as an outcome
• emotional well-being against the odds
• and/or as a process
• adaptability in the face of adversity.

4
What is resilience?

• Resilience is the ability to-
• resist adversity
• cope with uncertainty and
• recover more successfully from traumatic events
  or episodes.

5
Domains of resilience

• 6 areas of childrens lives(or domains) where
  resilience can be promoted or where a lack of
  protective factors can lead to low levels of
  resilience-
• Secure base
• Education
• Friendships
• Talents Interests
• Positive values
• Social competence

6
intrinsic extrinsic factors

• Each of these domains can be considered in
  conjunction with what resources clients have
  available to them from each of the following
  areas-
• The individual.
• Dispositional temperamental attitudes e.g.
  positive self concept, social perceptiveness,
  values, ability or willingness to plan
• Family or close relationships.
• e.g. Family harmony, required helpfulness,
  nurturance trust
• Wider community
• e.g. peer contact, positive role models

7
3 key factors

• Positive self regard.
• At least one secure attachment relationship a
  secure base.
• Access to wider supports such as extended family
  and friends.

8
Resilience can be developed by..

• Offering protection factors e.g. stable
  relationships or networks of support.
• Succeeding at challenges.
• Helping someone identify or develop something
  they are good at or really enjoy.
• Positively challenging persons way of viewing
  themselves the world.
• Changing the ways a person processes events.
• Helping someone build a wider social network.
• Giving someone the opportunity to relearn
  practice their social skills.
• Managed exposure to risk.

9
What do we know?

• Everyone has the potential to become become more
  resilient.
• Stable supportive positive relationships both
  within and outside of the family are key to
  building resilience.
• Resilience has many factors which can be
  measured.
• The resilience model appears to offer a
  theoretical framework for much that befriending
  is already doing.

10
Range of healthy routes
Becomes involved in offending
Misses considerable amount of school
Mother meets new violent partner
Parents separate
Family under stress
Courtesy of Brigid Daniel
11
Range of healthy routes
Friendships develop
Befriender supports child in a hobby
Parent obtains support
Parents separate
Family under stress
Courtesy of Brigid Daniel
12
Building resilience allows people to see
themselves in a new light, encourages self
determination, and helps to maintain balance and
flexibility to life events thus providing
resistance to succumbing to future crises.
Mike
Smith
13
Befriending Network ScotlandBefriending
Resilience.
14
Some questions

• It could imply that adversity from social
  disadvantage can be overcome simply through the
  efforts of individuals
• The term could be used too loosely as in
  children bounce back
• Almost all of the resilience research done so far
  relates to children, more work needs to be done
  to verify that resilience can be built in other
  client groups.
• The domains of resilience may be different for
  different client groups eg education may not be
  relevant and may be replaced with employment.

15
Update

• At the Befriending Network Scotland conference
  on resilience last year, every attendee said that
  they felt the theory of resilience fitted with
  what they were doing regardless of the client
  group that they worked with.
• Bfriends Scotland's largest children's
  befriending project changed the focus of their
  service to building resilience as a result of the
  conference.
• Resilience as an approach is increasingly
  appearing in the field of mental health mental
  health.
• BNS Professor Brigid Daniel Stirling University
  chair of social work are currently seeking
  funding for an action research project to
  investigate the links between befriending and
  resilience

16
Befriending Network ScotlandBefriending
Resilience.