KEY LEARNING POINTS
· In situations of conflict and forced migration, children and adolescents may face an accumulation of risk factors which may pose a serious threat to their development.
· The concept of resilience directs attention to “protective factors” within the individual, the family and the wider context which help people to cope with adversity.
· Children’s resilience is intrinsically linked with that of their parents or other careers.
· Strengthening supportive networks may be the most effective way of enabling children and their families to cope with adverse circumstances.
This Topic overlaps with Topic 3 in the ARC Community Mobilization Resource Pack, which also includes a number of training materials which are relevant to the issue of resilience.
RISK FACTORS FACING CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS
In Topic 2 it was suggested that children
and adolescents in situations of conflict and forced migration are likely to
face a range of risks and threats to their development. Displacement is often
to be seen as a threat to the social, emotional and intellectual development of
children and adolescents owing to the fact that they have experienced massive
change and that their environment has experienced wholesale disruption.
However, in assessing situations of risk it is important to avoid making
assumptions that exposure to a particular risk or hazard will automatically have
a harmful effect on children: the concept of resilience is a useful framework
for examining the way in which different people in similar circumstances may
react quite differently to threats to their development and well-being.
RESILIENCE: A DEFINITION
The concept of resilience is founded on the observation that under traumatic or otherwise adverse circumstances, some people cope and develop relatively well while others fail to do so. The term “resilience” describes the characteristics of those who cope relatively well - their personal attributes, the quality of their family life, their social supports etc. It is important to emphasize that resilience is not just about personal qualities, but about the way in which these qualities interact with external factors within the family and wider environment.
The term “resilience” is derived from the natural sciences and describes the capacity of a material or product to recover its original shape after being stretched or stressed: when applied to people it describes the capacity of the person to “bounce back” after difficult or stressful experiences.
RISK AND RESILIENCE IN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
The psycho-social well-being of children in difficult circumstances can be seen as a product of the balance between, on the one hand the presence of certain risk factors and, on the other, the existence of certain protective factors. Where the presence of protective factors helps to counteract the effects of risk factors, the person can be regarded as resilience.
Risk Factors
Many aspects of the situation of displaced
children and adolescents can be seen as risk factors. Many of them will have
had experiences of violence, loss and wholesale disruption to their lives, and
often such stresses are compounded by other factors in the context of
displacement. The many risk factors commonly experienced by displaced children
and adolescents include:
•
previous
traumatic experiences of violence, separation, fear etc.;
•
loss
of the family home, familiar surroundings, friends, familiar people etc.;
•
loss
of self-respect and self-confidence;
•
poor
diet and nutritional status;
•
lack
of opportunities for education;
•
lack
of opportunities for play and recreation;
•
excessive
burden of paid and/or unpaid domestic work;
• uncertainty about the future.
These points appear as Overhead 3.2.
In addition, children’s well-being is intrinsically linked with that of their parents: this means that the risks to which parents (or other careers) are exposed will also affect the children. These risks may include, in addition to the above:
•
poor
health;
•
mental
health problems such as depression and anxiety;
•
lack
of access to health and support services;
•
separation
from spouse;
•
relationship
problems and tensions in the marriage;
•
excessive
demands on their time;
•
unemployment
and lack of access to economic opportunities;
•
lack
of material resources;
•
worries
about other family members and about the future.
These points appear as Overhead 3.3.
For both parents and children, the presence of multiple risk factors, especially if they stem from both past traumatic experiences and current stresses, can disproportionately increase the risk. An accumulation of risk factors is likely to adversely affect the child’s development, and in turn this places him/her at increased susceptibility to other risk factors.
Protective Factors
Protective factors serve to shield both
parents and children from the worst effects of such risk factors and thereby
contribute to resilience. Some of these protective factors relate to the
characteristics, assets or resources of the individual such as the following:
• cognitive
competence - a reasonable level of intelligence, skills in communication,
realistic planning etc.;
•
a
positive sense of self-esteem, self confidence and self-control;
• an
active coping style rather than a passive approach - e.g. a tendency to look to
the future rather than to the past;
• a sense of structure and meaning in the individual’s life, often informed by religious or political beliefs, a sense of coherence etc.
In addition, protective factors are also a product of the child’s immediate social environment such as the following:
•
good
and consistent support and guidance from parents or other care-givers;
•
support
from extended family and friendship/community networks, teachers etc., and the
re-establishment of a normal pattern of daily life;
•
an
educational climate which is emotionally positive, open and supportive;
•
appropriate
role models which encourage constructive coping.
These points appear as Overhead 3.4.
In situations of conflict and forced migration, many of the child’s personal resources may have been undermined, and many of his or her social support systems may have been destroyed or disrupted.
For parents or other care-givers, various personal characteristics will serve to limit, or enhance resilience: within their immediate social environment, protective factors may include:
•
a
supportive marital relationship;
•
support
from the extended family;
• supportive
community structures - e.g. informal support from community, neighbors, women’s
associations etc.;
•
access
to appropriate health and support services;
• opportunities to re-establish an acceptable economic base for the family.
These points appear as Overhead 3.5.
The presence of such protective factors for parents will enhance their capacity for offering appropriate support to their children, but again many of these will have been adversely affected by conflict and forced displacement.
Exercise 3.1 may be used to illustrate
the interaction between risk and protective
factors for children and their parents or
other care-givers, while Exercise 3.2 provides an opportunity for
participants to consider risk and protective factors in a
case study.
STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE RESILIENCE
It will be clear from the above that
resilience in children is a product of personal characteristics, the family
environment and the availability of other forms of social support outside of
the family, and the interaction between these factors. A focus on
the child’s resilience has the advantage of directing attention to people's strengths rather than their weaknesses; it underlines the need to identify and strengthen existing support networks within the community; and it directs attention to those children and families whose assets and resources may need strengthening, as well as to those who may continue to be especially vulnerable even when these resources are in place.
A resilience approach can be considered in two ways: first, a risk-focused approach in which intervention is based on the identification of specific actual or potential risk factors. Examples of such a strategy are: the prevention of child abuse or neglect through parent and community education; a prevention of separation campaign in mass movements of people; a reduction in teenage drinking, smoking or drug mis-use through community-based or youth-to-youth programmed; supplementary feeding programmed where children’s nutritional status is unsatisfactory. Topic 4 of this Resource Pack considers some critical threats to child development in emergency situations, and these are cross referenced to other ARC Resource Packs which provide detailed information on the particular critical issue.
A second strategy may be described as a resource-focused approach which will aim to prevent and reduce risk for the population as a whole by improving the number and quality of resources available to support children and their families. Sometimes this will consist of strengthening existing community resources, and possibly reinforcing cultural norms and practices that seem to facilitate resilience: in other situations new resources such as clubs for children or facilities for parents will be required. Topic 5 of this Resource Pack provides a framework for promoting child and adolescent development through community-based interventions.
Underlying both approaches is the need to
view children and adolescents as active agents in their own development,
and not as passive victims of adversity. Assessments of children need to
include their competences, assets, strengths and resources as well as their
problems and areas of vulnerability. The active involvement of young people can
be a vital component in preventing and reducing risk and in enhancing
resilience. Issues of Child and Adolescent Participation are considered in
Topic 7, while the community mobilization of young people is considered in more
detail in the ARC Resource Pack on Community Mobilization, Topic 8.
Topic 5 of the ARC Resource Pack on Working with Children provides more
practical ideas on how the concept of resilience can be applied to children
whose psycho-social well-being has been affected by their experiences of
violence and displacement.