Novembre 2010

Events

• La pauvreté et l’exclusion sociale : agir dans les milieux de vie pour favoriser la résilience et contrer l’impuissance

  This conference will be presented by visoconference November 17, 2010 from Saint-Sacrement Hospital in Quebec City from 12:00 to 13:30. Conference speakers will be Mrs Ginette Paquet, Ph. D, researcher, Institut national de santé publique du Québec, Associate Professor, Social and Preventive Medicine Department, Université Laval and researcher, PRISM team, CSSS de la Vieille-Capitale, Centre affilié universitaire; and Mr. Robert Pampalon, Ph. D., researcher, Institut national de santé publique du Québec, Associate Professor, Social and Preventive Medicine Department, Université Laval, Geography Department, Université de Montréal. To register to the visioconference: rose.tremblay@fmed.ulaval.ca

• Je me sens mieux lorsque je porte mes lunettes roses: Modifier les processus cognitifs sous-jacents à la résilience sociale

  As part of the lunch conferences, this event will be held November 24, 2010 in Montreal from 12:00 to 13:30 at UQAM. Guest speaker will be Stéphane Dandeneau, teacher at the Psychology Department, UQAM.

• 2011 NAPSEC Annual Leadership Conference

  This annual conference of the U.S. National Association of Private Special Education Centers (NAPSEC) will be held January 16-19, 2011 in Captiva Island, Florida, USA. It will include some of the following sessions: Strengths-Based Interventions to Nurture Resilience, Schools that Promote Resilience: Nurturing Positive - Development among Children and Youth from Challenging Contexts, The Ultimate Transition Workshop, Components of the Model Classroom: Enhancing Teacher Effectiveness and Improving Academic and Behavioral Outcomes, Organizational Culture Change in the Education Setting.

News

• New research shows family joblessness impacts children

  Despite Australia’s strong economy, there are still families across the country who are living in poverty. For those families where neither parent is employed, the potential impacts go beyond financial difficulties and can affect child wellbeing, according to new research. A new study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies released during Anti-Poverty Week (17 – 23 October), shows that children living in jobless families are 13% more likely to develop behavioural or emotional problems than those living in families where at least one parent is employed.

• Teaching Kids to Work Through Trauma

  A child who grows up in the midst of political conflict, such as war or terrorism, can exhibit severe emotional scars. But certain qualities, which psychologists call "resilience factors," can help overcome this adversity. Prof. Michelle Slone of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Psychology has now developed a program to help children develop these resilience factors and avoid the psychological disabilities that may arise from stress. Her method — and her inspiring results — were recently described in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and International Journal of Behavioral Development.

• Study Confirms: Whatever Doesn’t Kill Us Can Make Us Stronger

  We’ve all heard the adage that whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, but until now the preponderance of scientific evidence has offered little support for it. However, a new US multi-year longitudinal study of the effects of adverse life events on mental health has found that adverse experiences do, in fact, appear to foster subsequent adaptability and resilience, with resulting advantages for mental health and well being. Original study: Whatever does not kill us: Cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience

• Childhood adversity may lead to unhealthy stress response in adult life

  Seemingly healthy adults, if they were abused or neglected during childhood, may suffer physiological consequences decades later. In research published online by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, a team led by psychiatrists at Brown University and Butler Hospital both in Providence, Rhode Island found that healthy adults who reported being mistreated as kids appear to have an elevated inflammatory response to stress compared to adults who had happier childhoods. It may shed light on risk for depression, other illnesses later in life.

• Watching violent TV or video games desensitizes teenagers and may promote more aggressive behavior

  Watching violent films, TV programmes or video games desensitises teenagers, blunts their emotional responses to aggression and potentially promotes aggressive attitudes and behaviour, according to new research published online in the Oxford Journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (19 October). Although previous research has suggested that people can become more aggressive and desensitised to real-life violence after repeatedly viewing violent media programmes, little is known about how the extent of watching such programmes and the severity of the aggression displayed affects the brains of adolescents.

Publications

• Resilience under conditions of extreme stress: a multilevel perspective

  It is important to note that the call for a multilevel perspective in resilience research and resilience-promoting interventions − that includes the criticality of conducting genetic and neurobiological, as well as behavioral, assessments − does not reduce resilience to biology, let alone to a single biological variable. The inclusion of a multilevel perspective on resilience should not hearken scientists and clinicians back to the time when some espoused the view that they were “invulnerable” children. The incorporation of a multilevel perspective into research on resilience still requires adherence to a dynamic, transactional view that respects the importance of context.

• Resilience, an Evolving Concept: A Review of Literature Relevant to Aboriginal Research

  This review suggests five areas for future research with an emphasis on youth: 1) studies to improve understanding of what makes some Aboriginal youth respond positively to risk and adversity and others not; 2) case studies providing empirical confirmation of the theory of resilient reintegration among Aboriginal youth; 3) more comparative studies on the role of culture as a resource for resilience; 4) studies to improve understanding of how Aboriginal youth, especially urban youth, who do not live in self-governed communities with strong cultural continuity can be helped to become, or remain, resilient; and 5) greater involvement of Aboriginal researchers who can bring a nonlinear world view to resilience research.

• Intimate Partner Violence and Children’s Reaction to Peer Provocation: The Moderating Role of Emotion Coaching

  The current study examined the relation between intimate partner violence (IPV) and children’s reactions to a stressful peer interaction in a community-based sample. The moderating role of parental emotion coaching in buffering children from negative reactions to a peer was also examined. Both adaptive (i.e., laughing, ignoring) and maladaptive (i.e., hostile/challenging, odd behaviors) reactions to the provocative peer were examined. IPV was positively related to children’s laughing and odd behaviors but was unrelated to ignoring and hostile/challenging behaviors. Additionally, emotion coaching was found to moderate relations between IPV and children’s laughing and odd behaviors. The importance of understanding protective factors in families experiencing IPV and of developing emotion coaching parenting programs is discussed.

• Social Capital and Resilience: A Review of Concepts and Selected Literature Relevant to Aboriginal Youth Resilience Research

  Social capital, as an asset or a resource for resilience, can be a characteristic of the community or the individual. As an individual asset, social capital consists of a person’s relationships to available social resources. As a characteristic of communities, it consists of attributes such as trust, reciprocity, collective action, and participation. Closely related to community social capital is the concept of collective efficacy. Some social networks, however, can be violent, repressive, bigoted, or otherwise destructive. Resilience is also a characteristic of both individuals and communities. This means that the relationship between social capital and resilience is four-dimensional. In discussing each of these dimensions, this article highlights the ability of resilience research to link evidence on community social capital with individual data and the recognition that individuals can be resilient even if the communities they live in have low or even negative social capital.

• Multi-type Childhood Abuse,Strategies of Coping, and Psychological Adaptations in Young Adults

  The aim of this study is to retrospectively analyze the rate of multi-type abuse in childhood and the effects of childhood abuse and type of coping strategies on the psychological adaptation of young adults in a sample form the student population of the University of Mostar, Crotia. Results show that exposure to multi-type abuse in childhood is a traumatic experience with long-term negative effects. Problem-oriented coping strategies ensure a better psychosocial adaptation than emotion-oriented strategies.

• Taking the temperature of local communities The Wellbeing and Resilience Measure (warm)

  This report sets out a new way to measure the wellbeing and resilience of people and communities. It starts from the assumption that the key to flourishing neighbourhoods is to boost local assets and social wealth, while also tackling vulnerabilities and disadvantage. It describes a tool – Wellbeing and Resilience Measure (WARM) – that has been designed to support local agencies and communities to better understand, plan and act.

• Coping in old age with extreme childhood trauma: Aging Holocaust survivors and their offspring facing new challenges

  The Holocaust has become an iconic example of immense human-made catastrophes, and survivors are now coping with normal aging processes. Childhood trauma may leave the survivors more vulnerable when they are facing stress related to old age, whereas their offspring might have a challenging role of protecting their own parents from further pain. This study examines the psychological adaptation of Holocaust survivors and their offspring in light of these new challenges, examining satisfaction with life, mental health, cognitive abilities, dissociative symptoms, and physical health.

• After every darkness is light: Resilient Afghan women coping with violence and immigration

  This qualitative research study examines the experiences and strategies that eight Afghan women engaged in to support the mental health of themselves and others, while facing significant war-related trauma in Afghanistan and the process of immigration and resettlement in the United States. The coping processes identified represent diverse and often culturally grounded methods of facing hardship. The participants endorsed relatively low levels of current mental health difficulties, suggesting that the coping mechanisms the women engaged in may be effective. The study also illustrates the culturally grounded nature and equifinality of resilience, as no two women engaged in all the same coping processes.

• Better to bend than to break: Coping strategies utilized by substance abusing homeless youth

  This study investigated the relationship between coping styles and problem behaviors among a sample of substance-abusing homeless youth. Homeless youth (n = 268) were recruited through the only drop-in center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Results revealed that youth with higher task-oriented coping reported less delinquent behaviors while those with higher emotion-oriented coping reported higher levels of anxiety/depression and higher delinquency. Contrary to expectations, youth utilizing higher avoidance-oriented coping skills showed fewer HIV risk behaviors, fewer anxiety/depressive symptoms, and less frequent alcohol use. Findings emphasize the need to examine coping strategies in the context that individuals are situated.

• Resilience in Trauma-Exposed Refugees: The Moderating Effect of Coping Style on Resilience Variables

  Research with survivors of torture has generated considerable variability in prevalence rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Multiple risk and resilience factors may affect this variability, increasing or decreasing the likelihood of experiencing psychological distress. This study sought to investigate the effect of several such resilience factors, coping style, social support, cognitive appraisals, and social comparisons on PTSD symptom severity. Furthermore, this study examined whether coping style moderated the relationship between resilience variables and PTSD symptoms.

• When a Parent Goes to War: Effects of Parental Deployment on Very Young Children and Implications for Intervention

  This article reviews what is known about the effects of the military deployment cycle on young children, including attachment patterns, intense emotions, and behavioral changes and suggests an ecological approach for supporting military families with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Specifically, home-based family focused interventions seem to warrant the most serious consideration.

• The development and validation of the protective factors survey: A self-report measure of protective factors against child maltreatment

  The objective of this study was to evaluate the internal structure of a self-report measure of multiple family-level protective factors against abuse and neglect and explore the relationship of this instrument to other measures of child maltreatment.

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