1. RESILIENCE
Working positively with Looked After
Young People

2. “can resist
adversity, cope with
uncertainty and
recover more
successfully from
traumatic events or
episodes”
Newman, T (2002)
RESILIENT CHILDREN

3. RESILIENCE
• Normal development under difficult circumstances.
Relative resistance to psychosocial risk experiences. Not
an individual trait or characteristic .. A range of processes
that bring together quite diverse mechanisms (Rutter)
• The human capacity to face, overcome and ultimately be
strengthened and even transformed by life‟s adversities and
challenges .. a complex relationship of psychological inner
strengths and environmental social supports (Masten)
• A good idea with enormous pragmatic value (Hart and
Blincow)

4. FINDING RESILIENCE IN ME
Think of a time in your life when you have
struggled to cope with adversity or emotional
difficulty in your life and consider „what did
you think and how did you feel‟?
Now discuss in your group
• What actions did you take?
• Why did they help?

5. FINDING RESILIENCE IN ME
• Talk to family or friends • Peer support
• Sleep • Positive feedback
• Eat • Retail therapy
• Walk away, take time out • Chocolate
• Counselling • Self expression
• Educate self about situation • Diary writing
• Laugh • Spend time with animals
• Throw self into new stuff • Take time for yourself
• Seek company – or solitude • Spirituality
• Realise you have choices • Exercise
• Use own skills positively • Focus on work
• Relate to past experience • Meditation
• Break into manageable bits • Medication

6. Domains of Resilience
Daniel and Wassell
Social
Secure
competence
base
Education
Positive
values
Talents &
interests Friendships

7. SECURE BASE
• Provide appropriate responses to attachment style
• Anticipate and rehearse problems
• Respond to young person‟s distress but also reach out to them
• Communicate acceptance
• Provide time and space to talk about loss and separation
• Care needs to be predictable
• Always be reliable
• Ensure special rituals are maintained on birthdays and other
celebrations
• Keep mementoes
• Do things together

8. EDUCATION
• Show that learning can be fun
• Seek connections between learning & life
• Model positive attitudes towards learning
• Give responsibility at school
• Help with problem-solving skills
• Identify skills and talents, encourage their development,
engage school in same
• Focus on successes at school
• Advocate for and champion young person‟s education

9. FRIENDSHIPS
• Social skills training on friendships
• Role play
• Help young people to see what they can offer to their friends
• Help with the notion of intimacy especially for those who
have been sexually abused
• Offer advice about jealousy, gossip etc
• Peer support programmes on listening and counselling skills
• Given message of the importance of friendships

10. TALENTS AND INTERESTS
• Be persistent and tenacious in supporting talents
and interests
• Offer a range of choices of things to do
• Encourage plenty of physical activity
• Help young person to understand cause and effect
• Consider what you can learn from the young
person and celebrate it
• Share activities
• Capture moments on camera

11. POSITIVE VALUES
• Discuss normal dilemmas
• Focus on the reasons for action
• Listen and take an interest in the young person
• Praise pro-social activities
• Require responsibility
• Provide good role models
• Provide clear rules and boundaries
• Be sincere
• Expect responsible behaviour

12. SOCIAL COMPETENCE
• Promote autonomy in decision-making
• Provide help with problem solving
• Help young person to build competence through
small steps towards self-efficacy
• Provide lots of attention
• Help young person to develop a sense of purpose
and future

13. RESILIENCE IN THE CHILD
• being female
• secure attachment experience
• an outgoing temperament as an infant
• good communication skills, sociability
• planner, belief in control
• humour
• problem solving skills, positive attitude
• experience of success and achievement
• religious faith
• capacity to reflect

14. RESILIENCE IN FAMILIES
• At least one good parent-child relationship
• Affection
• Clear, firm consistent discipline
• Support for education
• Supportive long term relationship/absence of
severe discord

15. RESILIENCE IN COMMUNITIES
• Wide supportive network
• Good housing
• High standard of living
• High morale school with positive policies for
behaviour, attitudes and anti-bullying
• Schools with strong academic and non-academic
opportunities
• Range of sport/leisure activities
• Anti-discriminatory practice

16. 7 „LEARNABLE‟ SKILLS OF RESILIENCE
Emotional awareness or regulation Ability to identify what you are feeling and manage
feelings appropriately
Impulse control Ability to tolerate ambiguity and not rush decision
making
Optimism Optimistic explanatory style - wed to reality
Causal analysis Ability to view difficulties from a number of perspectives,
and consider many factors
Empathy Ability to read and understand the emotions of others.
Helps build relationships with others and gives social
support
Self-efficacy Confidence in your ability to solve problems - involves
knowing your strengths and weaknesses
Reaching Out Being prepared to take appropriate risk - a willingness
to try things and view failure as part of life.

17. RESILIENT THERAPY: 4 NOBLE TRUTHS
• Accepting : the art of maximising what you know and then
applying it to the situation at hand to achieve a better than
expected outcome
• Conserving: keeping something within boundaries and
preserving the good things that are within it
• Commitment: reliability and predictability – considered and
balanced
• Enlisting: orchestrating the right people and organisations
into the right place to make resilient moves when and where
they need to be made

18. 5 COMPARTMENTS
• Basics
• Belonging
• Learning
• Coping
• Core self

19. BASICS
• Good enough housing
• Enough money to live
• Being safe
• Access and transport
• Healthy diet
• Exercise and fresh air
• Play and leisure opportunities
• Being free from prejudice and discrimination

20. BELONGING
• Tap into good influences
• Find somewhere for the child to belong
• Responsibilities and obligations
• Help the child to make friends
• Make sense of where the child has come
from
• Get together people the child can count on
• Help the child understand his/her place in the
world

21. LEARNING
• Make school life work as well as possible
• Engage mentors for children
• Map out career/life plan
• Help the child to organise him/herself
• Highlight achievement
• Develop life skills

22. COPING
• Understanding boundaries and keeping
within them
• Being brave
• Solving problems
• Fostering interests
• Self calming/soothing
• Lean on others when necessary

23. CORE SELF
• Instil a sense of hope
• Teach the child to understand other people‟s
feelings
• Help the child to know him/herself
• Help the child to take responsibility for his/herself
• Foster talents
• There are tried and tested treatments for specific
problems – use them

24. SUGGESTED READING
Resilient Therapy: Hart, A and Blincow, D (2007)
Routledge
Assessing and promoting resilience in vulnerable
children: Daniel, B and Wassell, S (2002) Jessica
Kingsley
Promoting resilience –Supporting children and
young people who are in care, adopted or in need:
Gilligan, R (2009) BAAF
Handbook of resilience in children: Goldstein, S
and Brooks, R eds. (2005) Kluwer Academic