![]() Resiliency: What We Have Learnedreviewed by Beverly Hardcastle Stanford - 2005 ![]() Author(s): Bonnie Benard Publisher: WestEd, San Francisco ISBN: 0914409182, Pages: 148, Year: 2004 Search for book at Amazon.com In her book Resiliency: What We Have Learned, Bonnie
Benard updates her earlier, often-referenced book Fostering
Resiliency in Kids: Protective Factors in the Family, School, and
Community (1991) and draws on her subsequent publications on
promoting resiliency in adolescents (1996, 1999, 2002,). The
deceptively slim volume is packed with findings from several
hundred research studies, programs, and projects, and insights from
theorists in the youth resiliency field and those related to it.
The 380 references since her 1991 book indicate the depth of her
updating endeavor. At a time when schools and legislators are focused on assessment
and accountability and the concept of evidence-based practice has
expanded from the nursing and health fields to education and social
work, the good news of Benard’s book is that it has the
evidence. If you think small schools are better for adolescents
than large ones, the book has the studies to prove that that is so.
If you think that family support for mothers in poverty is better
than welfare-to-work programs, the book reports findings to confirm
that. If you believe that strengths-based education and caring
classrooms keep adolescents in school, the book will back you up.
If you are against high stakes testing, her book references studies
that show that such testing “appears to be particularly
detrimental to resilience and youth development” and its
adverse effects on English Language learners have “already
been documented” (p. 75). If you want research to guide
development of a program to reduce youth substance abuse, Benard
provides it with a finding from the Center for Substance Abuse
Prevention’s National Cross-site Evaluation of High-risk
Youth Programs report: “Strong bonding with school and
family show the greatest associations with reduced substance
use” (p. 67). The book is also timely in terms of the ongoing need to promote
resiliency. In her preface Benard observes, “Unfortunately,
even armed with new understandings and programs, practitioners face
almost the same percentage of children and families living in
extreme adversity as ten years ago” (p. 1). She reports that
“twelve percent of American children continue to live not
only below the poverty line, but in conditions not likely to
improve….” (p. 1). Benard’sprofessional credibility in the field is high. She has worked in the areas of drug abuse prevention and youth resiliency for over twenty years in the The credibility of the book’s content is also high.
Included are findings from seminal studies and reports such as
those by the Carnegie Task Force on Education of Young Adolescents,
the Carnegie Task Force on Youth Development and Community
Programs, the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on
Successful Adolescent Development Among Youth in High-Risk
Settings, the William T. Grant Foundation’s Commission on
Work, Family, and Citizenship, and the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration. Insights of theorists and researchers such
as Erik Erikson, Viktor Frankl, Robert Coles, Emmy Werner and Ruth
Smith, Nel Noddings, Michael Rutter, James Garbarino, Anthony
Garmezy, Daniel Goleman, Robert Slavin, Sonya Nieto, Gloria
Ladson-Billings, Mary Poplin, Michael Fullan, Robert Putnam, Peter
Benson, Shirley Brice Heath, and Joy Dryfoos enrich the report.
Benardorganizes the extensive research findings into nine
chapters, three on the concepts of resilience and personal
strengths, five on environmental protective factors, and one on her
conclusions. Her four appendices list findings about what works in
youth resiliency: “Matrix of Personal Strengths,”
“Family Protective Factor Indicators,” “School
Protective Factor Indicators,” and “Community Program
Protective Factor Indicators.” To tie together what can otherwise be an overwhelming collection
of findings, Benard uses four overarching
“understandings.” The first is the “belief in the
innate resilience of every human being” (p. 113) and that
youth can develop resilience within the “protective factors
of caring relationships, high expectations, and opportunities to
participate and contribute” (p. 107). Second is that there
is no ideal program to promote resilience in youth; rather the key
is the human dimension in how programs are conducted. As Bernard
explains: Clearly, some approaches are more promising than others. Yet
the major message from long-term studies of human development as
well as of successful school and community programs is to realize
that programs per se are not the answer, it’s how we
do what we do that counts (p. 108) The third understanding is closely related and self-explanatory:
“The power of one person to make a difference” (p.
109). The fourth understanding, labeled “Wraparound
Support,” is that “protective factors in one setting
have the power to compensate for risks that may be present in other
settings” (p. 109). Bernard urges families, schools, and
communities to work together to provide youths with the protective
environments they need. The book’s shortcomings are minimal. An index would be
helpful, but the richness of the text makes this a formidable task.
And several significant thinkers seem to have been overlooked.
The works of William Damon, Director of the Center on Adolescence
at Stanford are not mentioned. His book The Youth Charter
and his reports such as “The Development of Purpose During
Adolescence” (Damon, Menon, and Bronk, 2003) belong in a
discussion of adolescent resiliency. David Elkind’s (1997)
classic, All Grown Up and No Place to Go, which contains
insights on forms of adolescent stress as well as perspectives on
adolescent cognitive development, would contribute as well.
Theories of resiliency proposed by Anton Antonovsky (1979) and
Susan Kobasa (1979) could be applied to youth resiliency. But
staying abreast of resiliency research today is a challenge.
As Benard observes, a look at citations in the Social Sciences
Citation Index reveals that in the 1980’s
“resilience and its derivatives occurred only 24
times. In the 1990’s, there were 735 such references. The
current decade is on a pace to at least double the previous total
output of scholarly research on the topic” (p. 1).
Through this book and her earlier publications, as well as
through her leadership of over 300 workshops and 60 keynote
addresses, Benard can rightly take credit for contributing to the
expanded interest in youth resiliency. Her heart for contributing
to the healthy development of adolescents is evident throughout her
easily accessible text and in the quotes she selects to share. A
Nel Noddings quotation (1988, p. 32) on resilient schools reflects
the light that Benard shines on this collection of research
evidence: At a time when the traditional structures of caring have
deteriorated, schools must be places where teachers and students
live together, talk with each other, take delight in each
other’s company. My guess is that when schools focus on what
really matters in life, the cognitive ends we now pursue so
painfully and artificially will be achieved somewhat more
naturally…It is obvious that children will work harder and do
things – even odd things like adding fractions – for
people they love and trust” (p. 86). Bernard’s goal is to influence practice with findings from
solid research. Researchers, doctoral students, teachers,
counselors, administrators, social workers, and parents, indeed all
who care for the welfare of adolescents, should find Resiliency:
What We Have Learned a valued resource. References Antonovsky, A. (1979). Health, stress, and coping. Benard, B. (1991). Fostering resiliency in kids: Protective factors in the family, school, and community. Benard, B. (1996). Fostering resiliency in urban schools. In
B. Williams (Ed.), Closing the achievement gap: A vision for
changing beliefs and practice (pp. 96-119). Benard, B. (1999). Applications of resilience. In M. Glantz & J. Johnson (Eds.),Resilience and development: Positive life adaptations (pp. 269-277). Benard, B. (2002). Turnaround people and places: Moving from risk to resilience. In D. Saleebey (Ed.). The strengths perspective in social work practice, 3rd ed., (pp. 213-227). Damon, W (1997). The youth charter: How communities can work together to raise the standards for all our children. Damon, W. Menon, J., and Bronk, K.C. (2003). The development of
purpose during adolescence. Applied Developmental Science, 7 (3),
119-128. Elkind, D. (1997). All grown up and no place to go: Teenagers
in crisis. Revised. Boulder, Co: Perseus Books. Kobasa, S. (1979). Stressful life events, personality, and
health: An inquiry into hardiness. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 37 (1), 1-11. Noddings, N. (1988, December 7). Schools face crisis in caring.
Education Week, p. 32. West Ed (September, 2004). Bonnie Benard, Senior program associate. Retrieved
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