Understanding Resilience

Authors: Brigid Daniel & Sally Wassell

Text-based version

1. From risk to resilience

For many years child care practitioners and researchers concerned themselves with identifying risk factors – like abuse, neglect or parental drug misuse - that might adversely affect the normal growth and development of a child. Recently, equal attention has been given to the discovery of protective factors, or factors associated with positive developmental outcomes in spite of difficult or adverse circumstances.

This change in emphasis is not just of academic interest. An understanding of the factors that protect children from harm can improve planning for children in need of care and protection. And can help us to recognise that - even in the most difficult or challenging of circumstances - children, their carers, and local communities contain natural strengths and protective influences.

2. Research evidence

A growing body of international research has provided consistent evidence that children growing up within troubled or abusive families, in poverty-stricken and war-torn communities, can overcome the odds and develop into "confident, competent, and caring adults" (Werner & Smith, 1992).

This evidence suggests that children and young people may be more resilient than earlier research suggested. But what are the factors that enable some children to survive adversity? What are the protective factors that make some children more resilient than others? Are children born more resilient, or are there environmental factors at play?

Resilience can be defined as: ‘ Normal development under difficult conditions’ (Fonagy et al. 1994). As we will see from the sections that follow, the factors that support ‘Normal development under difficult conditions’ are becoming better understood (Rutter 1985; Werner 1990; Werner and Smith 1992).

3. Protective factors and the ecological model

Protective factors are those factors within the child and his or her environment that buffer and shield from the negative effects of adverse circumstances. They have been found to exist at three different levels:

  • within the individual child (e.g. the child’s disposition and temperamental attributes);
  • within the child’s family or care situation (e.g. secure attachments with close family or carer relationships);
  • And within the wider community (e.g. positive peer relationships and supportive communities).

4. Resilient children and protective environments

The ecological model is only one way of thinking about resilience.

We can also think of the degree of resilience of a particular child as being at some point on a dimension with vulnerability at one end, and resilience at the other. This dimension is usually used to refer to the intrinsic qualities of an individual child. There are a range of different factors that influence where on this dimension a child might be located and the influence of these factors will change with age and stage (Werner and Smith 1992). For example, being born female is associated with a higher degree of resilience during infancy, yet in adolescence being male is associated with greater resilience.

A second dimension for understanding differences in resilience is that of protective and adverse environments. This dimension refers to extrinsic factors found within the family and wider community. Examples of protective factors along this dimension are the existence of a close attachment to a carer or sibling; or the presence of a supportive extended family member like an aunt or grandparent.

Diagram of the protective framework

Considered together these two dimensions provide a helpful framework for the assessment of risk factors and protective factors at all levels of a child’s social and emotional environment (Daniel, Wassell and Gilligan 1999). In the real world the two dimensions will interact: an increase in protective environmental factors can help boost a child’s individual resilience. For example good experiences at school can protect a child’s sense of self esteem, in spite of troubled relationships at home.

This framework can also be used as the basis for the assessment of potential protective factors with the aim of developing a plan to build on protective factors and boost a child’s resilience.