Reclaiming resilience: If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me
We need to talk about resilience. A word now mired in the controversy of new managerialism and deficit-based approaches, pushing it toward the anathema. But should that really stop us from talking and thinking about it?
When I started writing my dissertation on resilience, research seemed to naturally lead me to look at it from a practitioner perspective, or lack thereof. However, early on it struck me that there’s little point in looking at our own resilience if it’s a concept we don’t consider for the people we support.
Pinning down exactly what resilience is proved challenging. There are many nuanced definitions stemming from the original Latin of “returning to a prior position” which encapsulate hope and aspiration or, more simply, survival and endurance.
My research found two important areas pertinent to resilience. The first is the self. Pretty much anything that follows self with a hyphen (careful) is important, self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-perception. These are many terms that may have only slightly different semantics, but actually being able to map these separate facets could mean the difference between identifying and unlocking another. Key to these aspects of self was an undercurrent of reciprocity. Across the papers I looked at, positivity and a sense of future was also really important.
Sometimes this was just that there was a sense of future at all, skimming that endurance and survival end of the resilience spectrum, and sometimes through to positive, foresighted plans.
The second area is the environment. Thinking of the self aspect above as the top end of Maslow’s triangle, we are now looking at the lower half. Environmental impacts within the studies covered quite a spectrum, from factors showing strengths like openness and respect within family units
through to exploring how communities embody their values. One example, from an aboriginal population in Alaska, the Inupiaqs, focussed on the community’s relationship with its natural environment and how traditions focussed on strengthening the community. A stark contrast to the UK, where increasing numbers of people are living alone, and families being more geographically spread out. What are our modern community values, and how do we live by them? Giving back to the community also formed a key part of the communal values discussed in several papers. Whether time, support, or provisions, this was always done with no stigma or prejudice, even in areas ravaged by civil war, poverty, starvation and disease such as Rwanda. The sense of importance around reciprocity was again, unsurprisingly, strong in this theme.
In terms of resilience for practitioners I think there is lots that we can learn about how we need to treat ourselves. Reciprocity works for us too. We can spend all day looking for strengths in others and still not see them in ourselves. A simple “job well done” from anyone can brighten your day and
boost those aspects of self. It’s not difficult to put positivity into a supervision or team meeting.
Culture change can be slower than glacial within our corporate agencies, but whether from the bottom-up or top-down there are opportunities to reframe our practice with the public and our practice with each other to align with ways of developing resilience. Because we do practice with each other, within our networks, as managers, as peers fighting for the last hot desk. Some of these factors are mentioned in recent publication of a good practice toolkit for wellbeing and working conditions from BASW. Many of the priority areas for change reflect the working relationships that exist, with supporting and networking with peers mentioned elsewhere.
For the people we support, understanding where they have come from and where they are is critical. Looking at historical trauma, coping strategies, ecological systems theory, and identity (I could go on) will all feed into today’s picture of resilience, whether they are thriving or surviving. And I say today’s because tomorrow’s will be different. Resilience is not a trait. It is not static and immovable. It fluctuates, ebbing and flowing in a way that is as vital within all of us as our blood steam. The human epicentre of everything biopsychosocial. Because there is no precise definition for resilience, understanding its components is vital, since it represents the tangible (quantitatively so, I was surprised to learn) culmination of so many factors. One of the papers from my dissertation highlights the importance of quality rather than quantity of services, extolling the virtues of Positive Youth Development models which has values rooted in personal empowerment alongside community agency and capital.
This is not a neoliberal ploy. To promote resilience is not an extension of governmentalism unless you make it so, as with determinism around ACEs. In fact, the premise of resilience is aligned with humanistic, person-centred, strength-based social work practice. Why should we not want better for ourselves and the people we are supporting? My dissertation makes a range of recommendations. One of which I’m standing by, remaining on my resilience soap box. My others aren’t about radical change. They’re about a minor course adjustment that means we work consciously and actively in ways that improve ourselves and the communities we live and work in. So, are you really going to not talk about resilience?
