Risk, Protective Factors And Resiliency

Individual risk factors include: being a victim of child abuse, personality disorders, and extreme changes .In family situation, inter-family dependence problems, academic stress, poor academic performance, social deprivation, depression and suicidal. Anon, (2014)

In quantum physics as well as in various ancient civilisation there was/ is believe that all is corrected including people. It my my believe, that it is really so. We all creating each other reality as well as improving/ destroying one to another ( helping or acting badly in order to make a harm)

One must wonder how a person with Steve’s shocking childhood could grow into a man who is successful, not only in his career but in his personal life as well. Resilience theory is a possible explanation as to why Steve survived, despite the odds that were stacked against him. Resilience theory is a strength based approach which provides a framework that focuses on positive outcomes and not just the negative ones. The idea is that it promotes what works best while de-emphasizing psychopathology. Resilience theory defines resilience and possesses several key terms, which include protective/risk factors. Research on resilience has been valuable in directing attention toward youth who succeed in spite of high levels of stress and economic instability, as it identifies factors that can serve as protective functions which foster competence.

In order to develop resilience children and young people need firm foundations including; Trusting relationships, Structure and rules ,Good role models,

The external factors influencing a child’s development include their immediate environment, i.e. their family and their circumstances at home, their socioeconomic background and the education they receive from institutions or their family.

• Supporting the ability of children and young people to be resilient, self confident and empowered to make informed choices 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4

“Resilience: The Biology of Stress and Science of Hope” (2016), is a documentary corelating adverse childhood events (ACE) and chronic medical condition like heart disease and diabetes (Resilience trailer, 2016). Childhood trauma and toxic stress changes a person physically and emotionally (Lee, 2016). On November 29, 2017, I had the pleasure of attending a showing of the film ‘Resilience’ and the panel discussion which followed. The panel consisted of five community leaders discussing the impact of ACEs and the work being done to address the problem. The panel included: Joan Caley MS, ARNP-CNS, CNL, NEA, BC of ACES Action Coalition, Jill McGillis of Clark County Juvenile Justice, Michelle Welton outreach manager for Catholic Charities Refugee Services Program Support, Jonathan Weedman CCTP, LPC the director of operations population health partnerships for Care Oregon, and Sandy Mathenson EdD director of social –emotional learning for Battle Ground Public Schools. The speakers received about fifteen minutes to discuss their respective work and agencies. In this brief review, I will summarize the discussion and deliberate the effectiveness of the presentation method.

Resilience, fundamentally, is the ability to bounce back from hardship and the phenomenon of overcoming stress or adversity, for example: personal crises, poverty, mental illness and trauma (Occupational Health & Wellbeing, 2012). This skill can help individuals overcome the most difficult of situations (Occupational Health & Wellbeing, 2012). Resilience theorists generally agree that the presence of protective factors can reduce the effects of exposure to adversity. The more protective factors (or “assets”) available, the more resilient a person will be. Protective factors are conditions or attributes that help people deal more effectively with stressful events and eliminate risk. On the contrary, risk factors are attributes or characteristics

Resilience is a term that is often applied to those who have faced hardship and viewed the experience in a positive light as an opportunity to grow and change for the better (Wagnild & Collins, 2009). The definition however seems to vary from place to place. Ungar et al. (2008) stated “definitions of resilience are ambiguous when viewed across cultures" (p.174) which is why the understanding of resilience may be difficult to capture (as cited in Windle, Bennett & Noyes, 2011). Although the literature agrees on several common themes about resilience there are many varying opinions on how to define the concept or the attributing factors. Earvolino-Ramirez (2007) and

Many of the actions which support resilience are what most practitioners do naturally: showing care and concern, offering routine and consistent discipline, and building children’s trust by keeping promises.

According to Fraser and Terzian, 2005 (as cited by Frey, Mandlawitz, Perry, and Walker, 2016), “risk factor is any event, condition, or experience that increases the probability that a problem will be formed, maintained, or exacerbated” (p. 99). They defined protective factors as factors or behaviors, which reduces the likelihood of undesirable results. In basic terms, risk factors are anything that contributes to the possibility of a negative outcome and protective factors are actions that serve as a guide towards the desired results.

1. How do “effortful control” and “affiliativeness” relate to positive outcomes in children and how do they relate to the “theory of resiliency?” Are these approaches sufficient?

The movie that I thought represented risk and resilience the best was The Pursuit of Happyness. This movie is it is solely based on a lower class African American male named Christopher and his family. Throughout the movie Christopher and his encounter multiple occasions where they experience distress, a stress in daily life that has negative connotations (Boss, P., Bryant, C. M., & Mancini, J. A. 2017). This distress causes a huge amount of risk that challenges him to show resilience in order to keep up with his daily life and survive. Throughout this paper I will discuss the risk, external context, internal context and resilience that Christopher experiences and how this has made him who he is today.

Children and adolescents are resilient. According to McWhirter, McWhirter, McWhirter, and McWhirter (2013), resilience is the “capacity to adapt and function successfully despite experiencing chronic stress and adversity” (p. 130). Resilience is also the ability to come back from a negative situation and turn the adversity into something positive (Prince-Embury, 2015). When adolescents are placed in a stressful or difficult situation, they strive to make the best of it; however, there are some adolescents who struggle to make the best of the situation they are in, which leads to risky behavior. Family factors tend to influence resiliency as well as protective and risk factors.

Social and psychological risk factors can effects a human-being in many different ways. Let discuss a child, for example when dealing with social risk factors you must include these events which can change a child to a delinquency; early peer rejection, parental and family risk factors, antisocial peers, school failure, poverty, drug abuse, single parent household, domestic abuse and physical and emotional abuse. Psychological risk factors are a little different than social risk factors because a human-being is dealing with a low IQ, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder. (Curt R. Bartol; Anne M. Bartol, 2014). These are most of social and psychological risk factors that are associated with violence, crime of today’s society and delinquency.