Rethinking Resilience

How do we help those who have experienced ongoing adversity and trauma build resilience? First, we must shift our concept of resilience.

Resilience is often conceptualized as an individual trait, so we think it is up to an individual to fix themselves, rather than looking at systemic issues that may keep adversity and trauma firmly in place.

Just as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) impact children and families, Adverse Community Environments with concentrated factors of poverty, violence and hunger contribute to their hardship and trauma. Systemic racism adds to the complexity.

Shifting our collective mindset to view resilience as a community trait – and putting our efforts into making communities healthy and stable – must be at the forefront of rethinking resilience.

Building Safe Spaces and Resilience Starts With the Right Question

The core of this approach is looking at how we, as a community, can address Adverse Community Experiences AND Environments to change the habits and systems that keep adversity and trauma firmly in place.