Week 5: Paper 2

What Is “Resilience”?

Resilience is a concept that has gradually become more familiar in social work and human services, but it also has currency in many other fields of human endeavor: in engineering, provision of physical infrastructure, earthquake safety planning, crisis management in the face of natural disasters, etc. (Hayward, 2013; Chang, 2014, Bruneau et al., 2003). It also has relevance in disciplines such as sociology (Lockie, 2016), psychology (Masten, 2001), political science (Zebrowski, 2013), gerontology (Windle, 2011), and in a variety of fields of human service practice such as palliative care (Vanistendael, 2007), com- munity development (Chaskin, 2008), and the care of young homeless people (Kidd and Davidson, 2007).

Resilience as it relates to social work may broadly be understood as “doing better than expected in the face of adversity.” Like many meaningful concepts, resilience is not easily defined precisely. Another concept that presents such challenges is that of “beauty.” No one would deny the value or relevance of the word “beauty.” But there may be many opinions and cultural variations as to what is considered beauty. The word speaks to and enriches human experience. Arguably, the word “resilience” has a similar capacity to convey something powerful that can be recognized in many cultures, even if understood or expressed in a range of ways. While the term “resilience” grows in popularity and usage in the human services, there is still no widely shared and precise understanding. The phrase in the opening sentence of this

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paragraph conveys something of its sense, yet it also betrays a certain vagueness. This gives rise to certain questions: What is meant by “adversity?” Does the intensity or duration of adversity matter? What is meant by “doing better?” What is the comparator—doing better com- pared to what or whom? Is it that the person is doing better now than before, or is it that the person is managing to get back on track more or less as they were before the adversity? Or is it that the person is doing better than their peers who are broadly in the same boat, or are they doing better than those peers generally? Whose view is reflected in the notion of “expected?” The term “resilience” may quite literally raise many questions. But this chapter will seek to show the reader that it is a rewarding term that more than repays efforts to better understand how it plays out in real life. The concept sheds important new light on the nature of helping and social work practice.

There seems to be increasing consensus on a number of points relating to resilience in the research literature (Vanderbilt-Adriance & Shaw, 2008), for example:

Resilience is not a trait.

Resilience is not static. It fluctuates according to shifting circumstances.

It is more helpful to think of resilience as

relating to specific domain (e.g., educational outcomes) rather than as relating to global (overall) outcomes for a person.

It does not follow that resilience in one domain will carry over to other domains.

What Is “Adversity?”

“Adversity” is a core concept in thinking about resilience, since the notion of resilience requires its companion of adversity: someone displays resilience in the face of a given adversity, or set of adversities.

As it relates to social work or human serv- ice practice, adversity rarely takes a single form, or occurs in isolation. Typically, it may interact with certain surrounding circumstances, and these may sometimes serve to aggravate (or at other times to mitigate) the effects of the source of adversity. Adversity may arise from a single

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(one-off) event. This may have the effect of an unexpected shock: a natural disaster such as a tsunami; an unexpected death of a loved one. Adversity may also arise from chronic conditions: chronic hardship arising from poverty or other major stressors or an interaction between many such stressors over time. It is also the case, of course, that the line may become blurred between these two categories. The unexpected death of a lone parent may lead to chronic adversity where sources of support or income are scarce. The shock of losing a job may lead to the chronic problem of unemployment where the local labor market is weak, or where there is low demand for the skills the person has. Resilient adaptation in the face of the immediate shock of job loss may well be different from adaptation in response to the ongoing and possibly permanent state of chronic unemployment and associated loss of income. Chronic adversity may, of course, also leave one more exposed to shocks. For example poor people may be forced to live in places with a higher chronic risk of severe flooding, or live in relatively fragile structures in trailer parks where severe weather may have very destructive effects. Alternatively, where living conditions are good and support is high before and after a shock, its impact may gradually be contained over time, and “normal” life may be more easily restored—to some extent at least.

In considering all these issues, let us take the concrete example of a young person’s progress in school. A child’s progress in school goes into decline in the face of an episode of extended sexual abuse by a household member, leading eventually to placement in foster care. The placement means that the child has to change schools, and gradually shows recovery in terms of attainment in school. Since abuse and placement are known to be associated frequently with poorer school performance, the child’s recovery may be said to reflect (educational) resilience in the face of the adversity of sexual abuse—and the sur- rounding circumstances of the case. This last phrase is noteworthy. As social workers know well, problems rarely occur in isolation. There is a context—surrounding circumstances—to a problem, which may aggravate or mitigate the impact of a problem such as sexual abuse. The impact of abuse may be influenced by the nature

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and intensity of abuse, the pre-abuse levels of support and difficulties in the child’s life, and the level of support on adjusting to life after the extended episode of abuse has finally ended.

Just as the potential impact of abuse relates to the wider context in the scenario, so, too, do the prospects for resilience. But determining the presence or absence of resilience is not a simple matter. Is the “test” of resilience in this example to be recovery to the extent that the child is back on track with pre-abuse levels of performance, or that s/he is doing better than that, or the s/ he is achieving better than the average performance for children in care? These difficulties in definition do not make the concept of resilience meaningless or irrelevant for social work practice—certainly not—but they do remind us of the need for some cautious reflection on how we interpret the term as social workers.

Another example from the field of disaster recovery may help to shine light on some of these issues. Researchers in the field of engineering have suggested that resilience implies both “ the ability to adjust to ‘normal’ or anticipated levels of stress and to adapt to sudden shocks and extraordinary demands” (Bruneau et al., 2003). While allowing for the differences between the fields of engineering and the social or human sciences, the proposed definition from our engineering colleagues seems to have at least some relevance for social work. Yet implied notions of “recovery” may be more slippery than they first appear. Positive adaptation in the early days after the disaster may be gradually replaced by decline in the longer term as the full implications of the loss are grasped, and as immediate support that has rallied begins to wane. This example highlights the relevance of the passage of time in assessing response to stress or resilience. And in extreme conditions, the very act of survival may be a sign of resilience. To preserve the human spirit, to find fragments of hope, may be an act of defiance in the face of adversity. Survival may rightly be seen as a sign of resilience in the immediate aftermath of disaster or violent conflict, but living in ruins, forgotten and without the means to build a new future or eke out a daily livelihood, is likely to drain any sense of resilience from the morale and capacity of the people affected

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For a time in my teaching, I used a UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) photo from the Philippines of a nine-year-old girl from an impoverished family who lived on a huge, smoldering, toxic dump in Manila searching for items of value. What clearer example of absolute poverty could there be? Here was unambiguous adversity. Yet the photographer caught the child jumping up and down playfully on the broken sofa and smiling broadly. The image was in marked contrast to her surrounding reality. And for some time, I liked to use this image in presentations to help illustrate human capacity to transcend adversity, how the human spirit could shine through even in the most unlikely circumstances. But gradually, it became clear to me through discussion and reading that the passage of time was a crucial dimension in any consideration of the concept of resilience. The child was jumping with joy in the image of the photograph. It was good that she had this moment of joy, but the fragmentary moment captured in the photograph did not necessarily represent proof of resilience. She could be truly said to show resilience if she managed to transcend aspects of adversity linked to life on the dump in an enduring rather than fleeting way. She would show resilience if, over time, she showed better health outcomes, or more educational progress than might have been expected.

This example raises another issue—how to assess or measure any display of resilience. For many users of the term, resilience is not a subjective experience proven by claim; it is not enough for the person to lay claim to positive responses to an adverse set of circumstances. A subjective sense of positive adaptation in the actor or observer is not necessarily sufficient to justify the claim of “resilience.” Many adherents would also expect some additional “independent,” measurable evidence or data beyond the self-report of the person involved or observing. From their perspective, seeing the joy in the moment of the girl on the sofa, or hearing her positive outlook or account close to that moment, falls short in two ways. It falls short on the “passage of time” test, and on the “presence of corroborating independent evidence” test. And yet, is there also not something important to acknowledge in her moment of enjoyment? Perhaps the memory or expectation of such

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moments helps sustain her and helps disrupt a narrative of complete decline and defeat. In a study of children living as domestic laborers in Nepal, a number of them reported finding support and hope in the occasional experience of religious festivals (Veitch, Dharel, & Ojha, 2014). These occasional positive “escapes” from day-to-day challenges helped them survive daily life. The memory and prospect of participation in the community event of the religious festival helped sustain their positive sense of self through the often-challenging times in between.

While objective indicators of resilient adaptation are clearly very relevant, it is also important (for social workers, especially) to appreciate the significance of subjective experiences that may provide sustenance in the face of extreme adversity. Head of medicine for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Paul Bouvier (2012) gives powerful examples of how seemingly inconsequential items or experiences could help prisoners held under extreme conditions to continue to find positive meaning (and dignity) in the face of deep adversity. (Such examples include well-thumbed pictures of beloved people or places, cards, perfumes, etc.). This is a reminder that support may take many forms—the physical daily presence of a helpful person, but alternatively, a memory or some other image or symbol of inspiration. In the case of physical items, they seem to be important in evoking memories of connections to valued people or contexts. They may also serve to reassure the person of their worth, dignity, and essential humanity. Again, the notion of disrupting a narrative comes to mind as an essential idea in relation to resilience. The power of these disruptions lies in how they reassure the person that there are exceptions, that the negative narrative is not all-consuming; that, at the least, there are little symbolic and practical glimpses of an alternative to the oppressive reality of their daily routine. Those glimpses can help sustain the resistance (and resilience) of the person in the face of the adversity reflected in the dominant narrative. Anyone or anything that serves to disrupt negative “master narratives” may become a source of resilience, how- ever simple or “peripheral” that source may seem to the onlooker.

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Each discipline may relate to resilience in its own way. Perhaps part of the social work connection to resilience is to value the moments of disruptive resilience as well as the more trans- formative and enduring changes that may sometimes flow from supportive relationships.

A social work student of mine had a field placement in a general hospital. On his own initiative, he brought some music tapes to an elderly patient with whom he was working. In this thoughtful and generous gesture, the student was showing his own very personal concern for the patient, but in acknowledging their shared love of music, the student was also helping to disrupt the master narrative of sick patient that may threaten to envelop an older person in hospital. The opportunity to listen to music helped disrupt that narrative and restored to the per- son the social role of music aficionado, a role also much valued throughout the wider com- munity. This is not to mention the immediate pleasure and uplift from the direct experience of listening to the music. The music may have helped the person have an even brief experience of resilience in which he was better placed to face illness. For a social worker, the value of resilience lies, arguably, in its subjective experience in the moment, as much as in its objective, measurable endurance over time. Even a terminally ill patient may display and experience resilience.

People who hold significance in terms of promoting resilience in others may exert influence through “real-time” interactions. But there are various examples to show that memories of the remembered person’s qualities and values may also be a positive influence despite later physical distance between the “influencer” and the “influenced.” The power of memories does not contradict the general point of the influence of present experience. It is those memories that are alive and especially meaningful in the present that exert influence. Memories may reside in the individual or be shared within a family or com- munity. They may often exert resilience related influence.

There is striking research evidence on how aboriginal communities in Canada with stronger active connections to cultural traditions (shared cultural memories) showed more resilience in the face of the threat of youth

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suicide. Cultural continuity seemed some- how to contribute to the young person finding a self-continuity at a personal level (Lalonde, 2006). The rate of youth suicide was virtually zero in tribes that had retained a command of their traditional language (Hallett, Chandler, & Lalonde, 2007). Such studies illustrate how too narrow a focus on the individual may obscure the importance of powerful cultural and social forces at play in the scenario.

Young people may be influenced in their behavior by commitments made to parents before their death, or a sense of duty to the parent they have lost. One young woman who had gone on to grow up in care recalled at a training conference how her mother had asked her to study hard because of her natural ability, and how this advice had elicited a commitment that decisively shaped her later educational progress – a truly turning point experience in her life. The young woman had gone on to exercise her own agency in grasping the opportunity presented by her mother’s advice and encouragement (Gilligan, 2009). Another young woman with drug problems and other difficulties reported that she had found motivation to change her life when a friend reminded her that her late father would not have approved of her problem behaviors. Her sense of duty, no doubt partly instilled by her late father, served as a source of resilience (and resistance) in the face of a narrative with otherwise negative prospects (Markova, Tomov, Alexandrov, Katzarova, Marinova, & Mateeva, 2014).

In considering the relevance of support for resilience, it is important to appreciate that support may take many forms and come from many sources. A person may find support in the actual or expected actions of others, family, friends, neighbors, etc.; they may offer help and encouragement. But people may also draw support from the meanings they give to, or find in, experience, or in patterns of behavior, of traditions, of beliefs of their own, or of their community.

Belief in God proved powerfully sustaining, according to the accounts of a sample of unaccompanied minors far from their home culture. Typically living with many challenges of uncertainty about their future legal status, isolation from family networks, and so on, they clearly

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experienced belief in God as giving continuity and meaning and some form of certainty (Ni Raghallaigh & Gilligan, 2010).

There may be other experiences which help to cultivate potential resilience, for example, positive experiences in recreation, education or work. One example is the benefits flowing to vulnerable children through participation in therapeutic horse riding (Burgon, 2011) or other youth development activities (Sanders, Munford, Thimasarn-Anwar, Liebenberg & Ungar, 2015). There is evidence across different cultural contexts that positive experiences in school may provide valuable resilience enhancing opportunities (Liebenberg, Theron, Sanders, Munford, van Rensburg, Rothmann, & Ungar, 2016). A further example is how opportuni- ties to acquire work skills and experience may prove transformative for young people in care (Berridge, 2014; Arnau-Sabates and Gilligan, 2015). The thread connecting these positive experiences is often a positive relationship they offer the young person with influential others carers, volunteers, professionals or other positive actors. There is strong evidence that relationships and positive activities are linked to resilience (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2015).

Reflecting on Adversity

Social workers need to be sensitive to the nature of adversity involved, to the different implications of chronic adversity and traumatic events (Bonanno & Diminich, 2013). A key issue is also the level or intensity of adversity. Adversity may generate different levels of risk with different implications for the degree, if any, of potential resilience. High and especially extreme levels of risk may make resilience less likely. So, too, may the presence of cumulative (multiple) risk factors (Vanderbilt-Adriance & Shaw, 2008). The degree of adversity may affect the potential for resilience. For one person, it may become possible to transcend the adversity, but not for another. The difference may be due to the level of meaningful support they can access as they negotiate their way through adversity. The nature of such support may vary, and in some cases may seem very modest. In other circumstances, finding fragments of experience

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and support that sustain hope and positive meaning in oppressive circumstances may be a source of survival, of resistance, and of resilience (Bouvier, 2012). In considering why some people display “more” resilience in certain circumstances, one must remember that it does not necessarily mean they are “stronger” in terms of a trait of resilience. Adherents of a less global and static view of resilience would hold that differences in levels of displayed resilience may be more a reflection of differences in the “fit” between the person, the circumstances, and the nature of support flowing to them in that context. The person displaying resilience may happen to have a good fit between their circumstances and available support; the person without a display of resilience may lack such a fit.

Rutter (2012) reminds us of a critical point: research has established beyond doubt that there is huge variation in how individuals respond to adversity. This insight challenges deterministic assumptions that certain types of adversity necessarily produce automatic, predictable, or negative effects on those exposed. Instead, each individual responds in their own unique way to a given adversity. The die is not cast in the face of adversity. Indeed, Rutter suggests that adversity may sometimes produce a ‘steeling’ effect, thus making the person affected stronger. There is no certainty as to how each person will respond. This is actually a very powerful message and central to the importance and relevance of resilience. That notion of variable responses to adversity opens the door to uncertainty. That uncertainty becomes a potential seedbed for resilience; it becomes a basis for “reasonable hope”—an important companion in thinking about or “doing” resilience. Weingarten (2010) has argued the case for the value of embracing “reasonable hope” as a relational practice between helper and client, because “the future is not determined but can be influenced.” Adversity leads to uncertain outcomes. The future is not determined in some predictable way by a given adversity in a given scenario. This uncertainty leaves open the possibility that what happens next (after adversity) can be influenced. This implies, in turn, the potential for better outcomes than might be expected. Such “reasonable hope” opens the mind to the possibility of resilience and to practice that searches for and supports its possible emergence.

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How Does Resilience Relate to Other Theories Relevant to Social Work?

Several key concepts familiar from psychology and social sciences are relevant to our under- standing of resilience. Resilience is widely understood as arising from support found in relationships. Based on their study of the life- time implications of childhood maltreatment, Collishaw et al. (2007) observe that “‘it was those individuals with good relationship experiences across different domains and across childhood, adolescence and adulthood who were particularly likely to demonstrate resilience” (p. 226).

The field of social work is familiar with the concept of attachment theory, which posits the value of dyadic attachment relationships—typically manifesting powerful bonds of commitment; as in the example, for attachment theory, of the prototypical relationship between a parental caregiver and child. While not discounting the value of these relationships, resilience thinking reminds us of the value of wider and less powerful relationships that may exist in a person’s social network, the net of relationship connections that most people may have in their lives.

Social capital is an important but “slippery” set of theories about the qualities of relation- ships between people in a network. Social capital is broadly about the reciprocal obligations and commitments that may be felt to exist towards sharing forms of information and sup- port with others. Social capital theory suggests that in certain types of relations the actors feel duty-bound to offer help or to respond positively to such requests. To not offer such help would be to step outside the bounds of accept- able behavior in the community. There is a further incentive to offer help. The “deal” in such relationships is that, if I help you today, you owe me similar help tomorrow; not literally, but the “debt” incurred reinforces the sense of mutual obligation into the future. Social capital may be said to flow, under the right conditions, through certain connections and to lie waiting to be tapped. Social capital offers a useful counter- balance to attachment theory, suggesting that even “weak” relationships may have considerable value under certain conditions or in a given

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context. Social capital theorists have shown how “weak ties” may be influential in helping people find employment (Granovetter, 1973) or in coping in the aftermath of a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (Hawkins & Maurer, 2010).

The relevance of concepts such as social net- work and social capital to understanding resilience reminds us how “social” or “relational” the concept of resilience actually is. Rather than being a personal trait, resilience flows from a person’s relationship with one or more people, and it may be a quality also observable in wider groupings such as families or communities. Family structure manifested in processes and rituals such as regular shared mealtimes have been shown to be associated with resilience or better outcomes for children growing up in families affected by parental alcoholism (Velleman & Orford, 1999).

Resilience thinking has value for social work practice in a number of ways. It is a reminder of the potential for change in a given practice scenario. It remains open to the possibility that a person may prove able to break free of a “gloomy script.” It highlights the power of “small things,” how even seemingly “small” fragments of experience or elements in an overall profile may prove to exert considerable influence on subsequent progress in a person’s life. It is too easy sometimes to overlook how seemingly marginal or small things may have an impact. One such example of the huge power of small things comes from aviation, where accident investigations often uncover some very subtle error or incident that has had huge consequences. The withdrawal of the supersonic plane Concorde from commercial service globally was linked to a fatal crash in Paris. The cause of the crash was linked in turn to traces of broken parts on the runway that had fallen unnoticed from an earlier departing plane, which the ill-fated Concorde aircraft had somehow “ingested” into its engines. The story underlines the message that small things may sometimes have big consequences. Resilience thinking emphasizes the same point, but with a more positive twist. Unlike the Concorde story, resilience thinking encourages the idea that small things may sometimes have positive and substantial consequences for an individual or more widely.

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A case example from a remarkable social science research study illustrates powerfully the how change may come unexpectedly and from apparently “small things.” Laub and Sampson (2003) reported on the latest and probably final wave of long-term research on the adult lives of a cohort of young delinquents in the United States. The study has now tracked the young men into old age. It is a longitudinal study involving many authors over a number of generations in its nearly 50-year span. The study sought to investigate whether young men who had been delinquent in their teens remained in crime or desisted in later life. In reality, the study revealed both tendencies, and also a group who moved back and forth. Those who desisted often physically broke ties with negative influences (by moving) and often found an influential positive relationship through marriage or other means. One of the cases is a powerful illustration of how resilience may play out over one lifetime. The participant, “Gilbert,” was now aged 70 and had been sent to a reform school as a teenager and had been assigned to the electrical workshop where he met “Jack,” who was in charge. Recalling Jack all these years later, Gilbert remembered that

... he loved amateur radio. And he got me interested in radio and electrical stuff and things of that nature... He saw the potentials in me. He saw I enjoyed electricity. I enjoyed radio and stuff like that. He took me under his wing. And I thought an awful lot of this guy in a short ten months I worked with him. He was a prince. I prepared my whole life in ten months to do something. Think about it. Those ten months were crucial in my life. Because they turned me around. [Name of prison] turned me around. Jack turned me around. Jack was a humaniarian and cared for me as an individual. Let’s get down to brass tacks. What if Jack wasn’t there? What if I wasn’t offered the opportunity? ... He treated me right. As a matter of fact, after I left [name of prison] year after year on a yearly basis I would take my wife and kids, we’d drive all the way to [name of prison] to see Jack. (“Gilbert” in Laub & Sampson, 2003, p. 141)

Serendipity was in play in matching Jack and Gilbert in the radio workshop. Gilbert’s then getting on so well with Jack was also a key ingredient. Jack clearly had a strong, intuitive feel for the personal approach that mentoring work with troubled young people requires. Gilbert in

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turn took up the opportunity, so that the experience became a turning point, quite literally, in his life. The relationship and Gilbert’s exercise of his personal agency (through embracing the opportunity) were both critical to the process.

Resilience thinking also reminds the field of how important professional expectations and assumptions are. In many instances, arguably, social workers may be too deficit-led in their thinking. Prior knowledge and relevant experience may often lead them to “foreclose” pre- maturely on the possibility of change in a given scenario. Allowing our professional practice to be influenced by resilience ideas does not guarantee the prospect of positive change in all circumstances, but it may be said to “keep the door open.” It is not so much that such a “resilience–open” practice approach causes the change, but it contributes to conditions favor- able to such change, which remain open to the possibility of such change. Resilience thinking challenges notions of fatalism—that problems are so ingrained and entrenched that nothing can be done; that there is no possibility of change. Social processes such as diagnoses are ultimately social constructions, labels that are applied as a shorthand to describe a certain profile. Each person labelled an alcoholic may respond in different ways over time; some may manage to break free of a fatalistic view of the slim prospects for recovery. Resilience thinking encourages an openness to the possibility of change and the sometimes unexpected influences that may unlock that change.

Once sensitized to the relevance and potential of the concept, it is no longer easy for any professional, within social work or more widely, to discount the possibility of change. It may be said that the notion of resilience provides underpinning for hope in frontline practice. Ideas of resilience help engender a certain philosophical mindset in practitioners. They challenge default assumptions of gloom and doom in the face of adversity. Resilience is not just about what practitioners do, but about how they think about what they may do, how they appraise the scenario in which they must act. In working for change, it is important that social workers retain faith in the possibility of change, that they hold an expectation that change is imaginable.

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Resilience thinking involves two key points: that change is possible, and that change may come in many different and often unexpected ways. There is no strict formula to follow or apply. The knowledge base on resilience highlights the relevance of support. But support may take different forms and be experienced differently. This variation in what gives rise to potential resilience is its strength, but for some also its weakness. The lack of a neat linear formula may frustrate some. But that is life!

What Are the Strengths and Limitations of “Resilience?”

No single theory can match all circumstances, or be relevant to all the facets of the complexity of human experience. And so it is for resilience. As in many parts of life, a strength can also be a weakness. The appeal and apparent accessibility of resilience as a concept may mean that it is adopted or promoted in ways that sometimes lead to over-reach. The following quote under- lines the need for caution in our expectations of the concept

Resilience can help to re-imagine possibilities or alternatives in people’s lives; it can help to influence aspirations and perceptions that people may hold about their potential or their circumstances. But typically, resilience cannot alter those circumstances. It cannot, by itself, make a homeless family not home- less; it cannot make a violence-ridden neighborhood not violent; it cannot make a hostile school environment not hostile. Resilience may, however, be able to influence sometimes how a person copes with or perceives their circumstances. It may be able to help stimulate the confidence to ask questions and imagine new possibilities. (Gilligan, De Castro, Vanistendael and Warburton, 2014)

Some of its proponents may claim too much for the concept because they are swept along by the enthusiasm it can engender. The social sciences that underpin social work should remind us to retain a healthy questioning attitude. The question is not so much whether resilience can be meaningful or relevant, but under what conditions it may be so?

To put it another way, some of the limitations linked to resilience have not so much to do with the concept, but with how it is used. Many commentators are too easily tempted to

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make excessive claims, to claim universal properties for what is more realistically a conditional concept—resilience is not a global construct or property that resides in some people across all circumstances, or in some family or community groupings across all circumstances. Rather it is a process that recurs in unexpected ways and with sufficient frequency and impact to be given serious attention.

One important criticism of resilience—or of how it gets used—is the tendency for some to see resilience as something within the power and control of the individual. The victim of difficult circumstances is then seen as a culprit, because, according to this mistaken view, they have chosen not to exercise sufficient resilience. Such a view may sometimes gain traction since it may appeal to certain political viewpoints less favorable to funding support programs.

Issues for the Future

Writing as engineers, Bruneau et al. (2003) make a call that has resonance for social work research. They seek a move from “qualitative conceptualizations” of resilience to “more quantitative measures.” While this view may not win full consensus in social work, it is hard to see how greater attention to measurement will not become part of the research landscape in resilience as it relates to social work. We still need to deepen our understanding by exploring and debating understandings of resilience, ideas about resilience. But we also need to add a new dimension, finding and applying appropriate forms of measurement relevant to social work practice. Canadian social work scholar Michael Ungar has been helping to pioneer such approaches. It is not that social work research on resilience should exclude the qualitative aspect. As in so many areas of social work practice and research, qualitative perspectives remain important in deepening our knowledge, but our understanding of the value and impact of resilience can undoubtedly be enhanced by the addition of insights from quantitative research.

Research on resilience is challenging for a number of reasons: the conceptual complexity of resilience, its frequently contested nature reflected in quite different “schools of thought” about resilience, and the necessarily

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multidisciplinary perspectives that resilience research generally requires. It is also important that resilience research rise to the challenge of “drilling down” into multiple specific issues and “cases” so as to generate more fine- grained and relevant insights, as is happen- ing in the engineering field (Mebarki, Willot, Jerez, Reimeringer, & Prod’homme, 2014). An increasingly important issue in research relevant to practice is the translation of findings remote from practice to implications that are clear, accessible, and “practice-near.” Social workers want resilience researchers to answer certain questions about whether and how resilience is relevant to social work practice. What are the key messages for practice that may flow from resilience research? What does it suggest that social workers should do in given sets of circumstances? The ideas relating to resilience yield insights relevant for practice, but more in the form of guiding principles to be tested for relevance in a given context than an off-the shelf universal formula.

What Can Social Workers Do to Cultivate Resilience?

Resilience thinking represents an invitation to social workers to remain open to change, to appreciate the power of “life’s ordinary plenty” in the words of the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh (1972), or “ordinary magic” in the words of psychologist Ann Masten (2001). It is an encouragement to be aware in every scenario and decision of the importance of social support, and especially of the sources of support that may actually or potentially be at play in a given scenario. It is a call for an openness to a fresh narrative, to the power of serendipity, to chance opportunities that may prove influential, if they are grasped and that effort of grasping is supported. Since adversity is often multi-faceted it follows that efforts to cultivate resilience must embrace all relevant possibilities – the obvious and the less obvious. The combination of influences may make the difference (Schoon and Bartley, 2008).

Social work can operate at two levels. It can seek to recognize, promote, and support processes that are observed as enhancing resilience, or that are judged as likely to do so. These processes may occur in response to the intentional

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efforts of others, or as a positive side effect of actions by someone close to the scenario, including the focal actor. The social worker seeks to identify and “cheer on” positive processes that they observe in a scenario. The social worker can also seek to stimulate, from scratch, activities that are known to show promise, that may lead to the cultivation of valued social roles, to the uncovering of special talents or interests. The social worker should seek out and sup- port the “small things” that may serve to disrupt narratives of deficit and despair. Thus, the social worker will recognize how acquiring new interests or hobbies, or expressing of talents or realizing educational potential are all ways in which a person’s identity may be transformed in potentially life changing ways. The social worker sensitized to the relevance of resilience will remember that ‘small is not trivial’—apparently modest gains – as in the acquisition of a hobby or a step forward in education may produce dis- proportionately positive side effects. While the value of informal support is rightly highlighted in much of the practice-relevant resilience literature, it is also important to acknowledge the work that has highlighted how professionals may directly help cultivate or support resilience (Sanders, Munford, Thimasarn-Anwar, Liebenberg, & Ungar, 2015; Ungar, 2013).

Social work and resilience are well matched, but as in any relationship, there is a danger of becoming either over-invested or too detached. Sceptics and enthusiasts both need to become more discerning. Resilience has great potential value, but it is neither the answer to every- thing, nor another passing fad that can safely be dismissed.