Resilience and protective factors in the lives of adolescents

Abstract

Propelled in good measure by the urgent question: “What works?” the strategy of protecting young people from harm through a combination of risk reduction and the promotion of protective factors has gained currency across multiple health disciplines and among others working with and on behalf of youth (1). Conference and community presentations on protective factors or assets have become increasingly common in the past several years. Reflecting the growing interest in these themes, the May 2, 2000, White House Conference on Raising Healthy Adolescents was framed by a resiliency paradigm, clearly reflected in the selection of plenary and breakout speakers. Perhaps the greatest interest in resiliency-based research rests in the promise that protective factors can and do make a difference in the lives of young people across a variety of social groups, and for a variety of outcomes. The idea that there are events, circumstances, and life experiences that can help to protect young people from harm across categories of race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and geography is enormously appealing to those who have long advocated comprehensive programs for young people. That these protective factors would buffer against multiple risk behaviors and associated adverse health outcomes further explains why many communities both domestically and internationally have sought to organize initiatives designed to promote critical assets in adolescents. While the resiliency literature of the past generation has examined protective factors at the individual, interpersonal, and social systems levels, attention has focused more recently on the ameliorative effects of “connectedness,” that is, a strong sense of connection and closeness to parents, family, other adults outside of the family, to school, and other community-based institutions (2). Many adolescent health researchers with an eye toward clinical, programmatic, and policy applications of their research have deliberately focused attention on protective factors that are, like the above, amenable to social intervention and change. There is a sense of urgency about this work, because many adolescents’ lives are characterized by poverty and high levels of social disorganization and disadvantage. Indicators of widening polarization between those who do and do not appear headed for a secure economic future create a very real sense that for many at-risk young people, time is running out (2). There are several substantive underlying questions that continue to be raised as the scientific evidence about protective factors accumulates: Are there groups of young people for whom specific protective factors seem particularly critical relative to avoiding certain adverse outcomes? What protective factors appear to work best with whom? How can protective factors be transplanted into the lives of young people who are living in resource-depleted environments, and among youth for whom family is not a viable source of protection and support? For adolescents who have been deprived of protective factors, is there a point in the life trajectory when it is simply too late to remedy serious threats to well being? What then? (3). As support for identifying and understanding protective factors among adolescents continues to grow, it becomes even more imperative that our Address reprint requests to: Michael D. Resnick, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health, Gateway Building, Suite 260, 200 Oak St., SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455-2002. JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH 2000;27:1–2