Content area
Full Text
Key Words positive development, protective factors, alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, sexual behavior, violent behavior
Abstract Adolescent resilience research differs from risk research by focusing on the assets and resources that enable some adolescents to overcome the negative effects of risk exposure. We discuss three models of resilience-the compensatory, protective, and challenge models-and describe how resilience differs from related concepts. We describe issues and limitations related to resilience and provide an overview of recent resilience research related to adolescent substance use, violent behavior, and sexual risk behavior. We then discuss implications that resilience research has for intervention and describe some resilience-based interventions.
INTRODUCTION
Resilience refers to the process of overcoming the negative effects of risk exposure, coping successfully with traumatic experiences, and avoiding the negative trajectories associated with risks (43, 65, 72, 84, 106). A key requirement of resilience is the presence of both risks and promotive factors that either help bring about a positive outcome or reduce or avoid a negative outcome. Resilience theory, though it is concerned with risk exposure among adolescents, is focused on strengths rather than deficits. It focuses on understanding healthy development in spite of risk exposure.
The promotive factors that can help youth avoid the negative effects of risks may be either assets or resources (6). Assets are the positive factors that reside within the individual, such as competence, coping skills, and self-efficacy. Resources are also positive factors that help youth overcome risk, but they are external to the individual. Resources include parental support, adult mentoring, or community organizations that promote positive youth development. The term resources emphasizes the social environmental influences on adolescent health and development, helps place resilience theory in a more ecological context, and moves away from conceptualizations of resilience as a static, individual trait (87). It also stresses that external resources can be a focus of change to help adolescents face risks and prevent negative outcomes.
Adolescents growing up in poverty, for example, are at risk of a number of negative outcomes, including poor academic achievement (2, 96) and violent behavior (34, 37). One approach to understanding why poverty results in negative outcomes is to focus on other deficits to which poverty may be related, such as limited community resources or a lack of...