Multisystemic Resilience: Learning from Youth in Stressed Environments

Abstract

Youth resilience is the product of multiple systems. Still, the biological, psychological, social, and environmental system factors that support youth resilience are incompletely understood. How these factors interact, and the situational and cultural dynamics shaping their interconnectedness, are also under-researched. In response, we report a multi-site case study that is instrumental to understanding multisystemic resilience. It draws on the insights of 52 youth from stressed, oil and gas communities in South Africa (13 young men; 8 young women; average age: 20.28) and Canada (19 young women, 12 young men; average age: 20.77). Deductive and inductive analyses show that youth resilience is informed by a biopsychosocial-ecological system of interacting resources that fit situational and cultural dynamics. This has implications for society’s championship of youth adaptation to stressed environments, including less emphasis on individual resources and more on contextually responsive, systemic changes that will facilitate meso- and macro-system resistance to significant stress.

Differential Adaptation to Adversity: A Latent Profile Analysis of Youth Engagement With Resilience-Enabling Cultural Resources and Mental Health Outcomes in a Stressed Canadian and South African Community

“…Each community offered a rich opportunity to consider how cultural dynamics shape youth resilience. As detailed elsewhere (Theron et al, 2021), the SA community generally embraced “Ubuntu” values (i.e., traditional African values that promote human mutuality at family and community level) and encouraged religiosity and spirituality. The Canadian community appreciated family and community ties, but also valued independence; neither religiosity nor spirituality were overtly encouraged (Theron et al, 2021).…”

“…As detailed elsewhere (Theron et al, 2021), the SA community generally embraced “Ubuntu” values (i.e., traditional African values that promote human mutuality at family and community level) and encouraged religiosity and spirituality. The Canadian community appreciated family and community ties, but also valued independence; neither religiosity nor spirituality were overtly encouraged (Theron et al, 2021). These trends fit with studies elsewhere in Canada (Russell et al, 2015; Statistics Canada, 2020; Young & Shipley, 2015) and South Africa (Mhlongo, 2019; Phasha, 2010; Ramphele, 2012; van Breda & Theron, 2018).…”

Exploring the potentially positive interaction between social media and mental health; the perspectives of adolescents

“…Based on these initial focus groups, such a framework might begin to evolve with different dimensions. Adolescents and their technology use might operate within relational structures (including families, communities, and educational or work contexts) that enable them to take appropriate risks in a context of safety, fundamental to successful resilience (Theron et al, 2021). Furthermore, such a framework should also account for wider systemic factors, such as the role of governments, policies, and the responsibility that big technology companies should take.…”

Fostering resilience in young people with intellectual disabilities using a ‘settings’ approach

“…The over-arching unit of the case was TUP as a whole organisation. Furthermore, based on the orientation set out above that saw the fostering of resilience as a complex process involving an interplay between varying contextual and interpersonal factors (Theron, Murphy and Ungar, 2021), an "embedded unit design" (Baxter and Jack, 2008;550) was used where a series of identified initial overarching organisational subelements (such as, organisational structure, leadership, organisational cultures and grounded work practices) articulated with a range of groupings: TUP staff (both leadership and on-the-ground practitioners); the young people themselves ('trainees'); and external stakeholders (parents of the trainees and a representative from a national level disability advocacy group). This conceptualisation is outlined in Figure 1 below.…”