Resiliency

The Theory and its History: The Basics

In 1955, psychologist Emmy Werner began a longitudinal research study on all infants born on the Island of Kauai. She found that 1/3 of the infants in this group had one or more environmental factors that she considered high risk. These included poverty, parental substance abuse, mental illness, child abuse or domestic violence, criminality, or prenatal stressors such as prematurity or low birth weight.

Werner revisited this group once they were 18 years old. She found that 2/3 of her original high-risk group showed a range of serious problems: delinquency, pregnancy, substance abuse, depression, and dropping out of high school. The remaining 1/3 of this high-risk cohort, however, she found to be “competent, confident and caring.” In subsequent follow up with this group (at ages 32 and 40), Werner and her colleague, Ruth Smith, found that 66% of the original high risk group was functioning successfully and had become competent, confident and caring adults. They reported satisfactory and regular employment, stable, long-term relationships, positive relationships with their children, and an absence of major problems with substance abuse, violence, mental illness or criminal activity.

Werner and Smith’s work has provided a foundation for a generation of resiliency researchers, who have consistently found that a strong majority of children showing risk factors overcome adversity and go on to have positive developmental outcomes.

Primary Protective Factors

The renowned resiliency researcher Bonnie Benard outlines three primary protective factors, or “environmental factors that protect youth from risk” and promote resiliency (Bernard, Bonnie, Resiliency: What We’ve Learned, WestEd 2004, pg. 43). These categories, developed in the early 1990s, are described briefly below:

• Caring Relationships: loving support, availability, trust, unconditional positive regard and attentiveness
• High Expectations: clear, fair, positive and youth-centered expectations that provide structure and safety
• Opportunities to Participate and Contribute: ways to belong, develop and demonstrate skills, have input and contribute meaningfully at home, in community and at school

These factors provided the backbone for CEC’s early approach to working with schools and students, and continue to play a central role in our work today. Recognizing educators’ potential to build and provide protective factors to their students, we help teachers, administrators and staff see this potential and capitalize on it by building their student support skills through a supportive professional relationship with our consultants.  As an adjunct to this work, our counseling programs increase protective factors in the lives of struggling youth through individual and group counseling experiences, directly building their resiliency and social and emotional wellbeing.