Reducing Risk Factors of Children’s Resilience

Reducing Risk Factors of Children’s Resilience

This paper will examine the concept of resilience as it has emerged in

the research literature of Grotberg (1995). It will evaluate the

effectiveness of the concept in the area of developing more effective

protective factors for children and families subjected to

vulnerability and adversity. It will be noted that resilience needs to

be promoted on three fronts, work on individual resilience strategies,

promotion of resilience through the organisations and agencies, such

as school and the curriculum, family welfare services and promotion of

resilience in the community. This paper concentrates on those aspects

of reducing the risk factors and increasing the protective factors and

the values and pedagogy that are claimed to be powerful providers to

resilience.

Much has been written about promoting resiliency in children. The

swift interest in this issue is probably most visible to those who

work in the health and human services field and its regard is

reflected in both the commercial non fiction literature as well as in

academic texts (Hornby, 1998). To understand why this topic is

receiving such constructive support, it is helpful to frame the issue

of childhood resiliency in the existing context of health and social

service improvement. It is quite apparent that societies are in the

middle of an overall shift in values and attitude with regard to what

creates and supports health and well being. At its simplest, this

shift could best be illustrate as a move away from an exclusive focus

on risk factors, disease, and psychopathology, towards a more holistic

approach that is increasingly...

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