Fostering Resilience Among Urban Youth Exposed to Violence

Abstract

Most studies to date have examined negative effects of exposure to community violence, in line with the deficit-based perspective. However, given that most youth exposed to community violence demonstrate positive adaptation or resilience over time, we suggest a shift in perspective, practices, and policies across systems toward identifying and building individual, family, and community assets and strengths that may more effectively support youth who have been exposed to community violence and related risks into competent, caring, and thriving adults. In this article, we review how resilience has been conceptualized and operationalized within the context of community violence, highlight gaps in literature, and offer directions for future public health research and practice. We illustrate this review with practice-based examples from public health work in the San Francisco Bay Area. Future multidisciplinary longitudinal studies that identify protective processes and successful trajectories and rigorous evaluations of strength-based policies, programs, and protective processes are needed.

Safe Spaces Embedded in Dangerous Contexts: How Chicago Youth Navigate Daily Life and Demonstrate Resilience in High‐Crime Neighborhoods

“…From this perspective, and despite their ramifications, safety strategies are examples of how youth exhibit resilience while inhabiting high-crime environments. Resilience refers to one's capacity to overcome stressors and develop adaptive functioning despite adverse contexts (Jain & Cohen, 2013). Ungar (2013) proposes that resilience is characterized by bidirectional relationships between the individual and their environment that promote positive development; individuals must be able to access available, culturally relevant resources in order to thrive.…”

Malaysian adolescent students' needs for enhancing thinking skills, counteracting risk factors and demonstrating academic resilience

“…Under adverse situations, a cumulative impact of the external resilience assets increases positive outcomes. For instance, it facilitates the process of coping with adjustment problems (Rutter, 1999 ) or the avoidance of failure (Jain & Cohen, 2013 ; Oades-Sese et al, 2011 ; Rutter, 1984 ; Werner, 1993 ; Werner & Smith, 1992 ).…”

Life-course social and economic circumstances, gender, and resilience in older adults: The longitudinal International Mobility in Aging Study (IMIAS)

“…The common thread across definitions is that bouncing back or positive adaptation may follow or be triggered by adversity, whether from early childhood experiences such as trauma, or violence, current material deprivation or exposure to violence or, particularly among the elderly, loss ( Ahern et al, 2006; Masten, 2014 ). While not dismissing the harms of deprivation or adversity, an ever expanding group of researchers is finding that, at times, resilience can be the silver lining to clouds of misfortune ( Jain & Cohen, 2013 ). Resilience implies thriving, that is, not just an absence of pathology but also the development of strength in the face of exposure to risk ( Rutter, 2006; Windle, Bennett, & Noyes, 2011 ).…”

“…A synopsis of existing evidence suggests that resilience is an asset, one that can be augmented in adults as well as earlier in life, and that is linked to many benefits including physical health, contentment, and stability regardless of illness ( Jain and Cohen, 2013 , Stewart and Yuen, 2011 ). However, research to identify individual characteristics and life-course or current social resources and economic opportunities or constraints associated with greater resilience among older adults is limited.…”