ISBN: 978-80-244-4903-6 | DOI: 10.5507/ff.16.24449036

Resilience u adolescentů v nízkoprahových zařízeních pro děti a mládež

Martina Štefková, Martin Dolejš

“Resilience” comes from the Latin resilio, resiliere, meaning to bounce back, rebound, ricochet (Punová, 2012a). Resilience is the ability to cope with stressful situations in life (Garmezzy, 1991). There are two variants of the term in English. The word resilience refers to the dynamic developmental phenomenon which is based on the interplay between an individual’s personality traits and environmental factors in the context of adversity. In contrast, the term resiliency means the ability of an individual to cope with difficult situations in life without there necessarily being such a situation (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000). Studies of resilience have focused on the identification of risk factors and protective factors that lessen the negative effects of stressful situations (Luthar, 2006). Studies with at-risk groups, cohort studies and longitudinal studies have yielded the most valuable results (Luthar, Sawyer & Brown, 2006). Resilience in an individual is often inferred from the satisfaction by him or her of a certain criterion; based on evaluation by others; and based on resilience questionnaires (Šolcová, 2009). The ability to deal with one’s responsibilities and one’s self-perceived effectiveness are among the key signs of resilience in children and adults. A resilient individual demonstrates adequate adaptive strategies and behaviour at each developmental stage. According to Bandura (1997), self-perceived effectiveness influences the way we cope with stress. If we believe that we are in control of our life, we are better at managing our emotional states and are better able to cope with difficult situations in life. Our relational experiences as children and adolescents are an important factor in the development of our coping skills. The emotional availability of the other party in a relationship and the availability of support from others are of the essence. Trust in the availability of support from others and trust in the willingness of others to help are essential to our confidence in relationships (Thompson, Flood, & Goodwin, 2006). Good interpersonal relationships help alleviate stress and achieve positive stress outcomes (Cicchetti & Toth, 1997). Emotional reactivity can be construed as innate vulnerability, impulsivity or studied in terms of the threshold of tolerance. Thompson (1990) describes self-regulation as the factor that influences emotional reactions in a way that allows us to adapt to changing circumstances.       In adolescence, increased demands are placed on the individual. This often leads to crises and the development of oppositional patterns of behaviour as the individual’s adaptive capacity is being put to the test (Olbrich, 1990). Drop-in centres for children and youth provide professional care for adolescents who find themselves in difficult situations in their lives. These centres work with individuals who have conflict-ridden relationships with those around them, engage in risk behaviours or live in an environment in which models of such behaviour are present and who perceive their issues as difficult to manage or unmanageable. These services have a fairly short history, so there is insufficient research on the subject. As the facilities have evolved, so has evolved the opinion about what should be studied. Existing studies have tried to shed light on standardised processes and the characteristics of the target groups, whereas future research should focus on identifying effective ways of providing support to clients. The concept of resilience can be a good foundation for work with clients, as resilience can be improved by targeted interventions. Drop-in centres for children and youth could, for example, focus on teaching resilience to clients and on supporting the development of resilience processes within the clients’ environments. The main goal of our research was to define the key traits of resilience in adolescent clients of drop-in centres for children and youth. We have translated the Resiliency Scales for Children & Adolescents instrument (Prince-Embury, 2007), which is intended for children and adolescents aged between 9 and 18 years. Our efforts were based on the idea that by obtaining an instrument for measuring resilience, we would be able to target particular factors that contribute to resilience through our interventions and efficiently assess the results. Our second goal was to show how resilience could be developed through the use of the instrument. We conducted our first study of resilience in clients of drop-in centres for children and youth using the instrument in conjunction with a qualitative analysis of the clients’ responses. After removing noise, our sample included 451 respondents from 39 drop-in centres for children and youth, which were associated with the Czech Association for Outreach Youth Work or were in the process of applying for membership in the association. We have used a mixed-methods approach which included an extensive survey of clients of drop-in centres for children and youth with a focus on resilience and a case study which was conducted later. We have discovered a strong positive correlation between the respondents’ overall score on the coping scale and their score on the scale of relationship satisfaction (p=0.64). The significance level was α=0.001. Girls scored lower than boys on the coping scale and on the sub-scale of self-perceived effectiveness; the significance level was α=0.001. The research did not find any other differences in the performance of boys and girls on the individual scales and sub-scales. The score of most of the clients of drop-in centres for children and youth on the coping scale and the scale of relationship satisfaction was lower than the U.S. population mean score. The distribution of these values corresponds to the results of the unspecific subgroup within the U.S. standardisation sample that was under the care of mental health professionals. In all, 61.64% of the respondents scored lower on the coping scale and 57.08% of the respondents scored lower on the scale of relationship satisfaction compared to the U.S. population mean score. In contrast, 51.14% of the respondents scored higher on the scale of emotional reactivity compared to the U.S. population mean score. These clients would benefit from interventions focused on building resilience. The main use of the instrument is in individual work with clients. The Resiliency Scales for Children & Adolescents can help identify risk and protective factors at the micro-level of individuals. Most employees of drop-in centres for children and youth are able effectively to asses risk and protective factors at both meso- and macro-levels. If we connect these ecosystem levels, we will be able to carry out very effective interventions (Smokowski, 1999).

1. edition, Published: 2016, publisher: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, Křížkovského 8, 771 47 Olomouc