Primary Prevention and Resilience: Changing Paradigms and Changing Lives (From Preventing Violence in America, P 87-114, 1996, Robert L Hampton, Pamela Jenkins, and Thomas P Gullotta, eds. -- See NCJ-159949)

• NCJ Number: 159953
• Author(s): M Bloom
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 28 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This essay reviews the paradox of "resilience" and suggests its implications for primary crime prevention.

Abstract

"Resilience" refers to the fact that sometimes "healthy children emerge from unhealthy settings." Current understanding of resilience stems from a large body of empirical evidence that comes from independent researchers working in many places around the world. Although the researchers have differed in target problems, populations, and methods of study, they have produced generally similar results, namely, that some proportion of juveniles who have lived in various stressful psychosocial and physical environments grow up to become apparently healthy adults. It is equally well established by these same studies, as well as many others, that another sizable proportion of people who have grown up in the same stressful circumstances do not become healthy and effective adults. Why this differential outcome occurs is a paradox that scientists are seeking to understand. What is currently emerging is that there may be some uniformities in growth-promoting experiences that represent the context for the resilient individual. By focusing too much on that individual, rather than on individuals in social, cultural, and environmental contexts, researchers may lose sight of options for preventive/promotive services. The author proposes use of the term resilience to refer to systems properties, rather than in relation to an exclusive focus on a resilient individual. Paralleling the components of primary prevention, those who plan crime prevention should consider preventive factors, protective factors, and promotive factors, so that the spectrum of service programs is broadened. A review of the list of correlates of resilience from this expanded conceptual perspective may reveal underlying conditions that call for differential action in prevention, protection, and promotion. A table shows the individual, family, and social characteristics that are correlates of resilience, based on a literature review. 48 references