Resiliency Requires Changing Hearts and Minds

Abstract

Judging from the positive response I’ve had to my document on resiliency published a year and a half ago, as well as from the growing number of recent books and articles incorporating this concept, I feel the need to address what I see as the fundamental issue of the “resiliency approach”—the shifting of our personal perspective, our paradigms, from a focus on risks and deficits to a focus on protection and strengths. My concern is that the movement toward resiliency—toward creating family, school, and community environments rich in the protective factors of caring, high expectations, and opportunities for meaningful participation—not dissolve into more add-on, quick-fix programs and strategies. Systemic Change The building of resilient kids is a long-term developmental process that involves systemic change-the fundamental altering of our human systems, including the family, the school, the neighborhood, community-based organizations, and the workplace to make each of these arenas supportive, caring, participatory climates for all involved persons. Fostering resiliency isn’t something we do to kids; it isn’t about teaching them “resiliency skills, ” per se. Rather, protective-factor research has clearly shown us that the development of resiliency is the process of healthy human development that is based on and grows out of nurturing, participatory relationships