Session 5: Understanding resilience in adolescence

Although the term resilience is now widely used in media reports and discussions about mental health, ongoing debates continue to examine what the term really means.

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A word cloud of lots of different words, with the main ones being resilience, strength, motivate, agility and vision.

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The term is often used to describe an individual’s capacity to endure stressful conditions and to bounce back from challenging situations and circumstances. Some academics, psychologists and psychiatrists have spent their careers trying to understand resilience, and they continue to debate its essence. Whilst they may differ in their definitions of what resilience means, they share a commitment to its value, especially in relation to supporting robust mental health. In this session, you will explore these debates around the meaning of resilience and how resilience can be nurtured in young people.

One thing there is some agreement about is that resilience, much like a muscle or a set of skills, can be learnt and developed, but it takes practice. First, you will hear from some young people who have shown resilience through coping with adversity. As you work through the session, you’ll refer back to this from time to time.

This video provides insights into young people’s views about resilience and what it means to them.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: What Does Resilience Mean To Young People? | YoungMinds

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Transcript: Video 1: What Does Resilience Mean To Young People? | YoungMinds

[MUSIC PLAYING]

 

SPEAKER 1

To me, resilience is the power to come back up. So if you're a bit a clay-- I mean, I know you're not a bit a clay. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER 2

I think resilience is the ability to bounce back and knowing what to do in the future when it happens again.

SPEAKER 3

It's your way of dealing with something and managing to say to yourself, I've done this, I face this but I'm not going to face it again. It's your way of combating something and the way that you're going to deal with it in future.

SPEAKER 4

For me, emotional resilience is to be able to cope with life issues but also succeed at the same time.

SPEAKER 1

To me resilient--

SPEAKER 5

Emotional resilience is developing ways of coping with different and difficult situations.

SPEAKER 1

So for instance you're a piece of mud and somebody squishing it.

SPEAKER 6

Yes, so sort of building up a toolbox of ways to cope with them.

SPEAKER 7

Resilience means being able to cope normally when this thing is going on and still succeeding.

SPEAKER 1

My god [LAUGHING]

SPEAKER 2

I think it's important to build up your resilience because you'll have a better communication skills with all the people around the world, and also you have more confidence in the future.

SPEAKER 3

Resilience is important because it's the way that you're going to deal with a situation.

SPEAKER 1

To me, resilience-- Oh

SPEAKER 3

It means that you don't have to face the same thing again and it means that your mental strength is just a lot better than it has been previously.

SPEAKER 8

Resilient is important because it gives the know-how to come across problems in your later life and it give you the know how in everything.

SPEAKER 1

Sorry.

SPEAKER 5

Resilience is important because it can help people deal with new situations and it can help people as they're growing up throughout their lives.

SPEAKER 9

It allows you to be yourself, in a way, that gives it a confident to strive.

SPEAKER 1

Oh, I'm not saying it properly

- You are.

SPEAKER 1

I've just remembered what to say. Right, I've got it.

SPEAKER 10

Emotional resilience is important because it allows people to adapt and to change their life so they can cope with anything that they're faced with.

SPEAKER 1

To me, resilience is the power to come back up. So like a bit of mud, you squish it and it gets really sad and squished and flat. So you're upset, you're crying your eyes out and then somebody comes along, a.k.a. head start, and they help you to come back up and be a thick piece of mud again.

- Very good.

- That's brilliant.

- I liked it.

- Very good.

End transcript: Video 1: What Does Resilience Mean To Young People? | YoungMinds

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Video 1: What Does Resilience Mean To Young People? | YoungMinds

A growing body of research suggests that learning the skills to cope with everyday challenges during childhood and adolescence can reduce the likelihood of developing stress-related illnesses such as depression and addiction in later life (Cooper, Montgomery and Sheehy, 2018).

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Two illustrations of a childs face, side by side. On the left, the child looks sad and their head is bounded by spiky thorns. On the right, they appear happier, surrounded by roses.

Figure 2

Developing resilient behaviours to endure and adapt to stressful life experiences are clearly important life skills. Yet there are clear differences in how young people react to stressful situations. This leads many parents and practitioners to question why some young people appear more able to bounce back from life’s challenges and show fewer signs of anxiety than other young people. Even young people raised within the same family can demonstrate startling differences in how they react to and cope with stressful events. In the first activity, you will reflect on these issues.

Now that you have started thinking about what resilience might look like, you’ll study definitions of resilience next.

As you saw in the introductory video each of the young people described resilience in a different way. This reflects the academic perspective of this concept in that there are no standard definitions of resilience. While there have been attempts to quantify and measure it, most studies look at the concept qualitatively – as one group of researchers argued, ‘Rather like beauty, resilience may be said to lie in the eye of the beholder.’(Gilligan et al.,2014, p.1.).

Existing definitions of resilience have similar components, which involve doing well ‘against the odds’, coping, and recovering (Rutter, 1985; Stein, 2005).

• Psychologist Ann Masten and colleagues (1990) define resilience as the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances.
• Social researcher Robbie Gilligan (2000) defines it as a set of personal qualities that helps a person to withstand many of the negative effects of adversity.
• The British Psychological Society (2019, p. 2) defines resilience as ‘reduced vulnerability to environmental risk, the overcoming of stress or adversity, or a relatively good outcome despite risk experiences.’

The next activity will help you to untangle some of the technical language in these definitions.

When deciding if a young person is showing resilience, be aware that what might appear to be coping or resilient behaviour may be nothing of the sort. A young person developing anorexia might appear to be coping well if they are handing in their homework on time at school and seemingly getting on well with friends. As social workers Brigid Daniel and her colleagues note, ‘some young people who appear to be resilient may in fact be internalising their symptoms’ and while they may appear to cope in the short term are actually suffering greatly (Daniel, Wassell and Gilligan, 2010, p 70). When practitioners refer to ‘internalising symptoms’, they mean that a person may be developing anxiety or depression and becoming withdrawn, rather than giving out more open signs of distress such as aggression or impulsiveness, or dramatically falling behind at school. It is therefore important to consider all aspects of a young person’s behaviour when reflecting upon whether they might be struggling with something.

By now, you have probably realised that the concept of resilience is far from clear cut. But how far would you consider that resilience is embedded in an individual? The next activity asks you to decide.

Activity 3: Your views on resilience

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

Study the quote in Figure 3 from the National Scientific Centre on the Developing Child and consider what you think it means. Do you agree with it? Vote whether you agree or disagree, using the poll below.

Figure 3

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An image of 5 identical outlines of people, in a line. The fourth person is red and the other four people are in blue. There is a quote at the top: ‘Resilience requires relationships, not rugged individualism’. National Scientific Centre on the Developing Child (2015).

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The National Scientific Centre declaration drew upon academic research showing that one important reason why young people can overcome adversity is having one stable and committed caregiver or adult. It is suggested these relationships provide scaffolding that helps to buffer the effects of the adversity and help young people to adapt to changing circumstances.

Before looking further at resilience, it will help to consider next what people understand by the term ‘adversity’.

Adversity is commonly defined as ‘a difficult or unlucky situation or event’ (Cambridge Dictionary, 2020). In the world of resilience research, however, adversity is expressed more strongly, as traumatic and potentially harmful events or situations. Among children and young people, resilience shows itself most markedly in being able to cope with adverse situations such as living with drug-using or alcohol-dependent parents, severe traumas such as abuse, or the death of a close relative or friend that results in the loss of security and support.

Parental divorce and a long-standing illness in a parent or caregiver are unfortunately relatively common sources of adversity. You may remember in session 2 one of the young men we interviewed mentioned his parents separating as a source of distress. According to the UK Office for National Statistics (2015), in 2014, lone parents with dependent children accounted for 25% of all families that have dependent children in them. Additionally, researchers Payler, Cooper and Bennett (2020), estimated that parent or caregiver illness could affect approximately 20% of young people aged 11-17. These situations can bring additional burdens and caring responsibilities for these young people.

Adversity can also stem from the wider socioeconomic environment, for example, neighbourhood violence, terror or war, natural disasters, pandemics and poverty (Masten and Barnes, 2018). Multiple negative life events and adverse circumstances often expressed as ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) are currently a focus of concern due to their effect on wellbeing and on future health, and a growing body of research is examining how experiences during childhood and adolescence can affect health later in life (Hughes et al., 2017).

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A photograph of a person wearing a medical face mask.

Figure 4

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has introduced adversity into the lives of many young people. Sources of difficulty have included health and money concerns, abrupt changes in daily routines with school closures and families confined to their homes, and a contraction of the usual support networks (Casebourne, 2020). However, research is also showing that there have been some positives. In the next activity, you’ll hear some young people talking about their experience of life during the pandemic.

There are two slightly paradoxical ways of looking at the relationship between resilience and adversity. One way is to accept that people develop resilience through successfully coping with challenges. Another way is to recognise that people can be rendered less resilient through adverse experience and circumstances that have made them more vulnerable. Young people who are rendered more vulnerable through adversity are more likely to experience anxiety or depression, exhibit behaviours which many may define as ‘disruptive’ and, in some cases, turn to substance use (Hughes et al.,2017, Oldehinkel and Ormel, 2015). Later on, you will explore how these two scenarios can happen.

In the next section, you’ll consider an example of disruptive behaviour, which can be a sign of living with adversity.

Adversity can refer to a variety of different life experiences and can impact children and young people in different ways.

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A photograph of a person sat on the floor with their knees up and their head in their hands.

Figure 5

Mental health practitioners need to determine how a young person’s social environment may be affecting their health, while being aware of how this might interact with physical and mental developmental changes in adolescence. As you will appreciate, exploring the social environment can be very complex and covers sensitive territory, not least because parents and other caregivers may blame themselves when their child faces challenges to their mental health, and can feel threatened by perceived stigma of other people towards their children.

According to a recent review of the research on the effect of multiple adverse childhood experiences on health (Hughes et al., 2017), adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are most strongly associated with sexual risk-taking, mental ill health, self-harm, problematic alcohol or drug use and violent behaviour later on in the child’s life. These are associations, meaning that although there is a link between ACEs and subsequent poor mental and physical health, this is not to say that ACEs will cause poor health in later life and it is important to note that there is no clear evidence of a cause and effect relationship. Poor health is not an inevitable outcome of ACEs. Supporting resilience in young people who experience adversity can be the key to preventing the harmful consequences of adversity.

Next, you’ll consider what makes young people resilient.

Not all children and young people will be affected by the effects of adversity, which begs the question: what are the protective factors, and what enables some young people to be resilient? The common assumption is that resilience arises from dynamic interactions between genetic predisposition and a person’s life experience. From the mid-20th century, academics, psychologists and psychiatrists have been studying resilience in young people, identifying innate protective factors, for example optimism and creativity, combined with external protective factors, chiefly the support they receive from those who care for them (Richardson, 2002). Neuroscience has opened a window on what happens in the brain in adversity and in the development of resilience. You’ll look at this next.

Scientists have developed some understanding about what happens in the brain when people are exposed to stressful situations, and about how the adolescent brain differs from the adult brain. Combining this scientific knowledge can help deepen understanding about resilience in young people and demonstrate how good social support can influence changes in the brain via neuroplasticity.

In session 2, you found that in adolescence the prefrontal cortex is undergoing significant change. This area of the brain is used for the ‘executive functions’ of planning, inhibiting inappropriate behaviour, understanding other people and social awareness. During adolescence, the prefrontal cortex is being re-shaped and ‘pruned’. At the same time the limbic system, which is responsible for emotion, is exceptionally active (Blakemore, 2019). Combined, these changes can make young people particularly sensitive to adversity because the prefrontal cortex becomes temporarily less able to interpret and moderate the emotional responses of the limbic system.

The brain pruning and reshaping described above are aspects of neuroplasticity that significantly (but not exclusively) take place during adolescence. In addition, the nerve pathways formed during early childhood and adolescence show neuroplasticity by changing in response to an individual’s experiences in life (Schauss et al., 2019). Brain activity is highly influenced by social interactions and the wider social environment, whether for better or worse. There is some evidence that adverse experiences can impair development of the prefrontal cortex in young people (Hunter, Gray and McEwen, 2018). On the positive side, neuroscience suggests that supportive social interaction can lead to beneficial brain adaptations and enable a young person to learn resilient behaviours.

Figure 6 demonstrates how potential negative outcomes for a young person can be ‘tipped’ into positive outcomes by the protective factors of ‘warm supportive parenting’, ‘coping skills’, a ‘stable environment’ and ‘positive experiences’. Remember that negative outcomes from adverse experiences are not inevitable.

Figure 6

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An illustration of a child on a seesaw. On the left there are negative outcomes: risk factors, adversities. On the right, there are positive outcomes: protective factors, warm supportive parenting, coping skills, stable environment, positive experiences.

Figure 6

Whatever the social environment, anyone caring for a young person will realise that young people bring their own personal characteristics to any situation. Some individual differences can be attributed to their inherited genes. There is clearly an interaction between ‘nature’, which is genetically determined, and ‘nurture’, which encompasses experience. In the next activity, you’ll learn about a simple but effective analogy for thinking about how interaction between a young person’s genes and the environment can affect the brain.

Research in genetics can help to explain some differences between young people,indicating that a young person’s sensitivity to environmental challenges has genetic origins. For example, Boyce and Ellis (2005) suggested that genetic makeup predisposes how sensitive young people are to the stresses they experience during childhood. Albert et al. (2015) reported a specific gene variant among children who appear highly sensitive to their environments and are particularly vulnerable to stress. These genes are linked to chemical receptors in the brain, which in combination with family stress can lead to social and emotional problems later in life.

Studies in neuroscience and genetics strengthen our understanding of the links between the brain, resilience and mental health. However, there is much more research to be done before we can fully explain how these effects interact and neuroscientists are keen to acknowledge the important part played by experiences and influences within the environment. The next section explores further how resilience can be fostered in young people who may have become vulnerable through adversity.

In recent years, the dominant approach to the promotion of young people’s mental and emotional wellbeing has been to seek ways of developing resilience and promoting the protective factors that might reduce young people’s vulnerability to mental health problems. An example of how these factors are applied in policy can be seen in the work of sociologist Simone Fullagar who examined policy responses to the high rates of suicide among young people in rural areas of Australia. Fullagar reported that policy focused on identifying risk factors such as previous suicide attempts, mental health problems and social isolation, and on promoting protective factors such as social connectedness, problem-solving skills, and readily available mental health services was valuable in supporting young people (Fullagar, 2005, p. 32).

The family therapist and professor of social work Michael Ungar and colleagues (2013) argues that it is important to not just focus on the child or young person and how they can be supported to develop resilience but also on how society can be changed to nurture and foster resilience and remove challenges and barriers that make some children and young people more vulnerable to adversity.

In the next activity, you’ll focus on protective factors and consider whether you could apply this knowledge to a young person you know.

Next you consider how resilience can be fostered in schools.

Schools are increasingly seen as major players in creating resilient young people. This was the subject of a detailed report in England, ‘Local action on health inequalities: Building children and young people’s resilience in schools’ (Public Health England, 2014), which explored the different ways that schools could contribute.

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An illustration of reflections/shadows of people sat at desks in a classroom formation. There is a person standing at the front of them, teaching.

Figure 7

The report considered three levels of resilience support:

Individual:

• improving achievements
• supporting transitions
• promoting healthy behaviours

Interpersonal:

• parents and carers
• teachers and other staff
• friends

School and community

• using a ‘whole school’ aproach
• the scool as a community hub.

Note that this report deliberately did not separate out young people’s mental health from their physical health but considered that resilience relates to the whole of a young person’s wellbeing.

The next activity shows you how a secondary school in Brighton has supported its pupils to develop their resilience.

Activity 8: The academic resilience approach

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes

Step 1: Watch Video 5.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 5: The academic resilience approach – integrating approaches to building resilience across a whole school community

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Transcript: Video 5: The academic resilience approach – integrating approaches to building resilience across a whole school community

CLAIRE SIMPSON

I've been Head of Year now for three years. I started with Year 7 and they're now Year 9.

We started very much with a resilience program that was almost quite explicit in Year 7, in the transition from primary to secondary. So the point now where it really is part of the vocabulary of students. We ask them, what's the R word? And they will say resilience. It's not so explicit now, but it is all part of our culture.

Tutors have been using various activities, but also in terms of the one to one mentoring, progress conversations that they have with students about how they're doing in their work, that element of resilience is always there in the background.

The students are going through so many changes. Over the three years I've known them, they're now turning into adults and young people. They're growing. And it's something we are coming back to more, funnily enough, and reminding them a little bit, sometimes, that as they change, this is where the resilience really comes in.

JIM ROBERTS

It's about a common language. And it's about a whole staff culture. And a lot of our support staff already have very positive relationships with the young people and are doing exactly the things that help support and build young person's resilience anyway. But what it did was, it confirmed to them, in their minds, what they were doing is right, and important, and offer real value.

And I think, coming out of that session, a lot of them felt very, very pleased. They were very upbeat. They felt good about themselves because they could see, actually, they were having a very positive impact on the young people they were supporting. And it add value to that person's life.

And so, a young person going into the canteen is speaking to one of the people over the counter, and they're asking about how they're doing. And there's some relationships there already, in terms of knowing them, and they feel comfortable about asking how they got on at the weekend at football. Or finding out what they're doing over the holidays.

And rather than staff feeling as though they can't have that sort of conversation with young people, actually, it gave them the green light to say, yes I can, actually. And it is important, and it is of value.

SPEAKER 1

And schools encouraged it. And the senior leadership team are saying, do it. This is what we want to see you doing. I think that's really important.

JIM ROBERTS

I mean, we have 90 support staff, if you include site staff, librarians, TAs, [INAUDIBLE] of year, a whole variety of people there who can have a significant influence on how young people feel about coming to school.

CLAIRE SIMPSON

And with the student leadership programs that we've got, we've got a complete range of students that take part. You've got your able students, who perhaps might want to do a little bit more prefect type role, or governance type role-- so student governance, student counselors.

We've got students who are house captains and want to get involved in trying to sort of coordinate different events, and sort of be team leaders. We've got peer mentors who want to work one to one with people. We've got reading mentors that go and help at primary, but also with Year 9 work with Year 7 students. And it's a complete range of different students that will do this. And there are opportunities for all to get involved.

Year 9 have just been going through the options process. It's a really big year for them, another transition point for them. And having gone through transition with them before, building in the resilience work, it's been interesting going through the options process as they move to Key Stage 4.

And the aspiration that the students have, the way that they conduct themselves in terms of reflection. One of the activities we've been asking them to do is working on learning journals. They're not marked, they're not necessarily looked at, but they're a personal journal for that student. And they were asked to sort of present elements of that journal at the options interview.

And you can really see how students have developed their resilience, their aspiration. And so many of them, through the interview process, had an idea of where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do, even if it wasn't specific. They did have aspirations to go onto further education, or which job it was, or which area of work they wanted to do.

They had some confidence about them and they could present really well. And, I think, a lot of people were really pleased and surprised, actually, at how well they'd come on since them starting in Year 7.

JIM ROBERTS

So for me, it's been about building a resilient culture and all staff embracing that and being part of a young person's life. And that doesn't matter whether it's at the top of the pyramid, with some of our students with complex, highly complex needs, and the short stay school-- what that they do there in fostering relationships. Or the rest of the school, in terms of driving achievement and supporting young people in all sorts of different ways that I know you've seen today.

CLAIRE SIMPSON

We're rapidly improving school, and we've been through lots and lots of changes over the last couple of years. Having that resilience framework in place has really sort of helped, not just support students-- I think it's actually helped support all of us to manage change. It is probably there already, but the framework kind of just identifies that.

And moving forward, I'm really looking forward to being with my year group, taking them through to GCSEs. They feel like they are much stronger now. We know there's changes in the exams, and they feel like they can cope with that a little bit better. They are a resilient bunch of teenagers, and it's great to see.

SPEAKER 1

We've heard about some of the things that the school's done around, sort of, under the umbrella of resilience, if you like. And it's all very lovely, but tell me about how it links to attainment in school.

JIM ROBERTS

So in terms of students making progress and achieving, the school's gone from 20% to 5/8 [INAUDIBLE] in English Maths to 65%. And I know this is not just about the work on the resilience, but it's definitely a factor that has played a massive part in helping create the culture and ethos within the school, where every child feels they can achieve, and every member of staff feels that every child can achieve and reach their full potential.

End transcript: Video 5: The academic resilience approach – integrating approaches to building resilience across a whole school community

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Video 5: The academic resilience approach – integrating approaches to building resilience across a whole school community

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Step 2: Now match the examples of resilience support with one of the levels mentioned in the Public Health England report: ‘individual’, ‘interpersonal’ or ‘School and community’.

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Answer

The skills of sorting activities into a category can offer a useful way of making sense of situations and applying logical thinking. It is often the case when considering human behaviour, however, that some things can overlap categories. The student leadership programme, for example, probably fits most closely with the ‘individual’ category, but you could easily argue that is it supporting interpersonal relationships. Ideally, you’d want to include it in both categories.

The school featured in the video clearly had robust systems in place to foster resilience. If you would like to see the whole video for further study, use this link.

Even the most resilient young person can become overwhelmed by the effects of poverty and health challenges, and even the most optimistic adolescent can be deeply affected by an acrimonious parental divorce. Cooper and Rixon (2017) argue that resilience is not static, and there are positive (‘protective’) and negative (‘adverse’) factors that can enhance or undermine it. Many young people do show great resilience in the face of difficulty but this should not be used as an excuse to blame those who do not cope with stress or adversity or to believe that if only they had the ‘right’ psychological or genetic qualities they could cope as well as their resilient peers.

Check what you’ve learned this session by taking the end-of-session quiz.

Session 5 practice quiz 

Open the quiz in a new window or tab then come back here when you’ve finished.

The main learning points of this session are:

• Resilience can be defined in a variety of ways, although at its heart is a sense of doing well ‘against the odds’, coping, and recovering. Resilience is important in helping young people to cope with difficult life challenges or more serious threats to their wellbeing and learning how to be resilient is a key life skill.

• Adversity can create a resilient response, but it can also render a young person more vulnerable to the knocks in life. Multiple sources of adversity can overwhelm a young person’s resilience resources and sometime adversity can lead to disruptive behaviours.

• Brain and neuroscience studies have identified how the brain adapts in response to experience. Different parts of the brain, especially those that are involved in stress responses, are changed by both adversity and environmental protective factors. Genetic make-up, although it may predispose a person to greater or lower resilience, does not mean they cannot adapt and become more resilient.

• Schools have an important role to play in fostering the resilience of young people.

Now to go Session 6.