What is Resilience

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What is Resilience?

• Mental Health Week 2009
• Building Resilience Sign up, Link in, Get
  Involved

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Outline

• Mental Health Week 2009
• What is resilience?
• Individual resilience
• Community resilience
• Getting involved and resilience
• Where to from here?

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What is the Mental Health Association NSW?

• The Mental Health Association NSW (MHA) is a
  non-government organisation and registered
  charity funded by NSW Health.
• www.mentalhealth.asn.au
• Vision A society that values, promotes and
  protects mental health and wellbeing for its
  citizens.
• Goals
• Promote good practice in mental health
• Increase community awareness of mental illness
  and promote mental health
• Inform and support people to access appropriate
  mental health interventions
• Continually improve the viability, capacity and
  operation of the Association.

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What is Mental Health Week?

• Mental Health Week (MHW) is part of a national
  mental health promotion campaign held in early
  October each year.
• MHA is the state coordinating body for MHW in NSW
  
• Mental Health Week 2009
• In 2009 MHW is from Sun October 4th to Sat
  October 10th
• The aim of MHW is to promote social and emotional
  wellbeing to the population in NSW

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Building Resilience 2008-2011

• MHW 2009 is year 2 in the MHAs 3 year mental
  health promotion Building Resilience campaign
• 2009s focus is Sign up, Link in, Get involved
• This promotes the benefits of getting involved in
  your community for your mental health and
  wellbeing

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What is Resilience?

• Brainstorm ideas about what resilience means to
  you
• It could mean
• The ability to bounce back or recover from
  stressful situations
• The ability to take on challenges, and find
  meaning in them
• Being able to respond positively to difficult
  situations
• Learning and growing through various experiences
  in life
• Rising above adversities
• Transforming unfavourable situations into wisdom,
  insight and compassion
• Being able to cope when things look bleak
• Being able to tap into hope
• Being able to forgive

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What is Resilience?

• Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a
  stressful experience, adapting to this situation
  without lasting negative consequences.
• Being resilient doesnt
  stop bad things happening
  but can limit
  their impact
  on our lives

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Why are Some People More Resilient than Others?

• Factors that influence how a person reacts to a
  stressful or challenging experience include
• Individual health and wellbeing
• Individual factors
• Life history and experience
• Social and community support

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Resilience and mental illness

• Building resilience can decrease the chance of
  developing mental illness
• Offsets risk factors for mental illnesses like
  lack of social support or bullying
• Resilience research

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What Promotes Your Resilience?

• Now that you know what resilience is and how it
  relates to aspects of your life, lets recap by
  brainstorming ideas about what promotes or
  improves your resilience

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What Promotes Your Resilience?

• Positive relationships with friends, family,
  colleagues or community members
• Communication skills
• Emotional, intellectual and/or creative
  development
• Healthy self esteem
• Good physical and mental health
• Planning and goal setting
• Problem solving ability
• Sense of humour
• Sense of mastery
• Being able to relax, take time out

Adapted with permission from Response Ability
Promoting Resilience and Wellbeing
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What Drains Your Resilience?

• Unsupportive environments
• Lack of connectedness to others
• Communities that dont reach out to their members
• Not caring for yourself physically and
  emotionally
• Lack of sense of mastery or
• control
• Focusing on the negative
• Lack of humour

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Tips to Build Individual Resilience
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What is a Resilient Community?

• A resilient community is defined as a community
  that takes intentional action to enhance the
  personal and collective capacity of its citizens
  and institutions to respond to, and influence the
  course of social and economic change
• Centre for Community Enterprise in British
  Columbia, The Community Resilience Manual

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Resilience Factors for Community
Adapted with permission from Murray Lloyd (2008)
and Paton, Johnston, Smith Millar (2001)
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Community Resilience

• Taking the ideas that you have generated in
  previous exercises, think of ways that you may be
  able to build resilience at a community level

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How to Build Community Resilience

• Have community cohesion
• Build stronger families within the community
• Develop cultural competency
• Build safe and healthy environments
• Encourage healthy lifestyles
• Provide social and support groups for members of
  the community

Reproduced with permission from LIFE Resources,
Resources can be downloaded from
livingisforeveryone.com.au
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Example of Building Community Resilience

• Building community resilience is a process
• Example 1 Early childhood
• Perry Pre-School Program 1962
• 21 years later
• 40 less crime and teenage pregnancies
• 7 of women had mental health problems compared
  to 40 in control group
• Benefits were substantial

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Example of a Community Program to Promote
Resilience

• E.g. 2 Northcott Place high rise units
• Inner Sydney city
• High levels of violent crime 1980s
• Community programs that focused on getting to
  know others and having activities of all members
  of the community
• Tenant by Tenant tenants take portraits of each
  other with the help of a professional
  photographer
• All tenants choose the favourites, which become
  part of an exhibition
• Lower levels of violent crimes within the past 2
  years (prior to 2004)

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Sign up, Link in, Get involved

• Benefits of getting involved include
• Improved self-esteem
• Increased sense of belonging and connection to
  others
• Protection against some mental health problems
  like depression and anxiety
• Reduced stress levels

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How to Sign up, Link in, Get involved

• Brainstorm ways on how you can get more involved
  in your community
• These may include (but are not limited to)
• Signing up for a course or some physical activity
• Linking in with local services or family and
  friends
• Getting involved in volunteering or community
  groups

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What if Im already involved?

• Dont overload yourself!
• How could you make your networks more inclusive?
• To people with disabilities or from CALD
  communities
• How can you help build others resilience?

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Where to From Here?

• Information Resources on Resilience, Getting
  Involved, and Mental Wellbeing
• www.mentalhealth.asn.au/wellbeing/wellbeing.html
• Mental Health Information Service
• 1300 794 991 for information on mental health
  issues and services in your local area