1. & Centre for Research on Educational & Community Services
A Risk and Resilience Framework for Understanding and Enhancing the Lives of Young People Living in Foster Care
Bob Flynn
School of Psychology
& Centre for Research on Educational & Community Services
University of Ottawa

2. Outline What is resilience in children & youth?
What protective factors have been found to promote resilience in children & youth?
Some findings in our Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project
Conclusion: What would a resilience framework for policy and practice look like for young people living in foster care?

3. What is resilience in children & youth?

4. Brief history & definition of resilience
Beginning in 1970s, researchers noted that some children at high risk for problems and psychopathology were developing quite well.
“First-generation” resilience researchers: Anthony (1974), Garmezy (1971, 1974), Murphy (1974), Rutter (1979), Werner & Smith (1982).
Definition of resilience: “Good outcomes in spite of serious threats to adaptation or development” (Masten, 2001).
For a child to be defined as resilient, 2 key criteria need to be satisfied:
Positive adaptation, including development of competence
Significant risk or adversity

5. Usual criteria for defining positive adaptation in studies of resilience
Presence of positive behaviour (e.g., academic achievement, happiness, life satisfaction)
More specifically, success in meeting age-related expectations or standards of behaviour known as developmental tasks
Absence of undesirable behaviour (e.g., serious emotional distress, criminal behaviour)

6. Usual criteria for defining good adaptation in studies of resilience (continued)
Good external adaptation (e.g., gaining occupational skills)
Good internal adaptation (e.g., psychological well-being)
Functioning in normal range (“doing OK or better”), rather than excelling
Multiple outcome domains (rather than a single domain)

7. Typical measures of good outcome in resilience studies
Academic achievement (e.g., grades, test scores, staying in school, graduating from high school)
Conduct (rule-abiding vs. anti-social behaviour)
Peer acceptance & friendship
Normative mental health (few symptoms of internalizing or externalizing behaviour)
Involvement in age-appropriate healthy activities (e.g., extracurricular activities, sports, community service)

8. Defining serious threats to good adaptation
Individual risk factors:
E.g., premature birth, divorce, maltreatment, motherhood in unwed teenagers, parental psychopathology, poverty, homelessness
Cumulative risk indices:
Cumulative risk scores
Stressful life experience scores

9. What protective factors have been found to promote resilience in children and youth?

10. Protective factors promoting resilience in children & youth (Masten)
Within the child:
Good cognitive abilities, including problem-solving & attentional skills
Easy temperament, adaptable personality
Positive self-perception & self-efficacy
Faith & a sense of meaning in life
Positive outlook on life
Good self-regulation of emotional arousal & impulses
Talents valued by self & society
Good sense of humour
General appeal or attractiveness to others

11. Protective factors promoting resilience in children & youth (cont’d)
Within the family:
Close relationships with caregiving adults
Authoritative parenting (i.e., high warmth/responsiveness & monitoring/supervision)
Positive family climate, including low discord between parents
Organized home environment
Postsecondary education of parents
Parents with protective qualities listed above
Parents’ involvement in child’s education
Socioeconomic advantages

12. Protective factors promoting resilience in children & youth (cont’d)
Within interpersonal environment (within or outside family):
Close relationships to competent, prosocial, & supportive adults
Connections to prosocial & rule-abiding peers

13. Protective factors promoting resilience in children & youth
Within the community:
Effective schools
Ties to prosocial organizations (schools, clubs, church groups, scouting, etc.)
Neighbourhoods with high « collective efficacy »
High levels of public safety
Good emergency social services (e.g., 911, child protection)
Good public health & health-care services

14. Basic human adaptational systems that underlie protective factors and explain why resilience is relatively frequent (Masten, 2001)
Resilience is the product of ordinary, basic human adaptive processes & assets, namely:
Brain development
Cognition
Attachment relationships & parenting
Regulation of emotion & behaviour
Motivation for learning & engaging in the environment
Formal educational systems, cultural belief systems, & religious organizations

15. Major lessons from Emmy Werner’s Kauai longitudinal study
The great importance of early childhood in laying the foundation for resilience, as well as
The “opening of opportunities” in the 20s and 30s that led to “turning points” and positive shifts in life trajectories:
Continuing education at community colleges
Educational and vocational skills in armed forces
Marriage to a stable partner
Conversion to a religion involving active participation in a “community of faith”
Recovery from a life-threatening illness or accident
Most attributed their good outcomes to informal help (from spouses, friends, extended family, teachers, etc.) rather than to formal help (from mental health professionals)

16. Some findings on resilience in our Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project

17. Seven developmental outcome dimensions of Looking After Children
Health
Education
Identity
Family and social relationships
Self-presentation
Emotional & behavioural development
Self-care skills

18. Asset (e.g., + tutoring) Positive outcome (e.g., child’s success Risk
Looking After Children’s role in increasing resilience: (1) Providing assets to offset risk factors
Asset
(e.g.,
tutoring) +
Positive outcome
(e.g., child’s
success
in school)
Risk
(e.g.,
severe
poverty of
birth family -

19. child’s good self-esteem) + Mediator (e.g., foster Parenting) -
Looking After Children’s role in increasing resilience: (2) Improving mediators, to augment protective effects of assets & lessen negative effects of risks
Asset (e.g.,
Scouts or
Guides) +
Positive
outcome (e.g.,
child’s good self-esteem) +
Mediator (e.g., foster
Parenting) -
Risk (e.g.,
abusive birth parents)

20. Outcome (e.g., child’s good social interactions) Natural buffer
Looking After Children’s role in increasing resilience: (3) Emphasizing natural risk buffers and improving effectiveness of risk-activated buffers
Outcome (e.g., child’s good social interactions)
Natural buffer
(e.g., child’s pleasing
personality)
Risk (e.g.,
violence
in birth family)
Risk-activated
buffer (e.g.,
effective social work
intervention)

21. ILLUSTRATIVE RESILIENCE-RELATED OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTHS AGED 10-15

22. Comparisons on key Looking After Children developmental dimensions
Comparisons between:
Non-random sample of 340 young people aged in care of Ontario CASs, and
Random sample of young people aged from general Canadian population (i.e., from NLSCY)

23. Injuries in last 12 months? (ages 10-15)

24. Overnight hospitalization in last 12 months? (ages 10-15)

25. Rating of academic achievement, in reading, math & overall
Rating of academic achievement, in reading, math & overall? (ages 10-15) (Thirds are based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note. Top third experience better academic achievement

26. Has child/youth ever repeated a grade at school (including kindergarten)? (ages 10-15)

27. Does child/youth receive special or resource help at school
Does child/youth receive special or resource help at school? (ages 10-15)

28. General self-esteem (ages 10-15) (thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note. Top third report higher levels of general self-esteem.

29. Happiness & optimism about future (ages 10-15) (thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note. Top third report higher levels of happiness & optimism.

30. Peer relationships (ages 10-15) (thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note: Top third experiences higher levels of positive relationships.

31. Getting along with (foster) mother (ages 10-15) (thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note: Top third reports higher levels of getting along with (foster) mother.

32. Level of pro-social behaviour (ages 10-15) (thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note: Top third reported higher levels of pro-social behaviour.

33. Level of anxiety/emotional distress (ages 10-15)(thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note: Top third reported lower levels of anxiety/emotional distress

34. Level of physical aggression (ages 10-15) (thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note: 2nd half reported lower levels of aggressiion.

35. Level of indirect (relational) aggression (ages 10-15) (thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note: Top third reported lower levels of indirect aggression.

36. Level of hyperactivity/inattention (ages 10-15, yr 1) (thirds based on Canadian [NLSCY] norms)
Note: Top third reported lower levels of hyperactivity.

37. Conclusion: What would a resilience framework for foster-care policy & practice look like? (Masten & Powell, 2003)
Mission: Frame goals in positive terms
Promote competence
Shift developmental course in more positive direction
Models: Include positive predictors and outcomes in models of change
Competence/health, as well as problems
Developmental tasks
Assets as well as risk factors
Protective factors as well as vulnerabilities

38. Examples of strategies for promoting resilience in children and youth (Masten & Reed, 2002)
Risk-focused strategies: Preventing (or reducing) risk and stressors
Prevent low birth weight through prenatal care
Prevent child abuse or neglect through parent education
Reduce teenage binge drinking or drug use through prevention science (e.g., Communities That Care)
Prevent homelessness through housing policy or emergency assistance

39. Examples of strategies for promoting resilience in children and youth (continued)
Asset-focused strategies: Improving number or quality of developmental assets/community resources
Provide tutors for school work
Organize a Girls or Boys Club
Offer parent education classes
Build a recreation centre

40. Examples of strategies for promoting resilience in children and youth (continued)
Process-focused strategies: Mobilizing the power of human adaptational systems: e.g.,
Build self-efficacy through graduated success model of teaching
Teach effective coping strategies (e.g., pre-surgery)
Foster secure attachments through home-visiting programs for new parents
Nurture mentoring relationships (e.g., Big Brothers/Big Sisters)
Encourage participation of children with prosocial peers in healthy out-of-school-time activities
Support cultural traditions that encourage children to bond with prosocial adults (e.g., religious education; classes where elders teach Aboriginal traditions of dance)

41. Some resources on resilience, including applications in child welfare
Flynn, R. J., Dudding, P. M., & Barber, J. G. (Eds). (2006). Promoting resilience in child welfare. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.
Masten, Ann. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, vol. 56, No. 3, pp
Masten, Ann S., & Reed, Marie-Gabrielle J. (2002). Resilience in development. Pp in C. R. Snyder & Shane J. Lopez (Editors), Handbook of positive psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Masten, Ann S., & Powell, Jennifer L. (2003). A resilience framework for research, policy, and practice. Pp in Suniya S. Luthar (Editor), Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in the context of childhood adversities. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.