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Part II:
Status of Research-Based Programs
Research-Based Programs That Foster Resilience
The great danger I see in the idea of resilience is in expecting children to overcome deprivation and danger on their own....There is no magic here; resilient children have been protected by the actions of adults, by good nurturing, by their assets, and by opportunities to succeed. We cannot stand by as the infrastructure for child development collapses in this nation, expecting miracles.
-Dr. Ann Masten, 1998
Start with what they know; build with what they have.
-Lao Tau, 100 B.C.
Reviewing the literature on programs that attempt to foster some aspect of resilience is an uplifting enterprise as one discovers the sheer multitude of people trying to make life better for others. It is also a daunting task--there are well over a thousand articles written about these programs. Unfortunately, most have not been evaluated adequately to warrant widespread replication.
In consultation with Bonnie Benard, I have chosen programs that have some outcome data to review here. Most do not describe themselves as "programs designed to foster resilience." Be that as it may, in the words of Kumpfer:
Luckily, although not specifically designed to increase resilience, most prevention programs logically or intuitively focus on increasing protective mechanisms. Many of these protective mechanisms are synonymous with resilience mechanisms. Hence, increasing research findings about resilience building processes should better inform prevention program design and increase program effectiveness."(10/3/95, draft, p. 12).
From her research with ordinary school children, homeless children, and Cambodian-American youth who survived the Pol Pot regime, Masten (1996) has developed the following basic guidelines for resilience-based programs:
- Assess strengths and assets as well as deficits, problems, and symptoms.
- Know the outcomes that you want to enhance and how they develop.
- Remember that children live in multiple worlds of family, peers, schools, and communities, and each context is a source both of protective factors as well of risk factors.
- Consider that the leverage for intervention changes with development. The same things do not work for four year olds and fourteen year olds. Developmentally informed programs are more likely to succeed.
- Multifaceted programs targeting multiple risks, assets, and protective systems are more likely to succeed than those targeting single risk factors.
- No single or combined strategy is best for all situations or all children. Cook book approaches are less likely to succeed than programs designed to fit specific times, places, and local conditions. There is no one size fits all solution.
- Evaluation enhances programs, funding opportunities, science, and our collective wisdom (Masten, 1996, p. 24).
When we look at different programs, we become aware of just how important it is to understand risk and protection as processes, and to understand how these processes--and by implication, the programs--work to foster change. In the words of Benard (1996a), "Resiliency research has clearly shown that fostering resilience, i.e., promoting human development, is a process and not a program. It forces us to consider not just content--what we do--but also the process--how we do what we do" (p. 9). By virtue of how these programs do what they do, they enable people to call upon or develop the resources which contribute to resilience.
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