Framework

The process of tapping resilience is deeper than prevention strategies, wellness programs, community empowerment, collaborative initiatives, youth development programs, or interventions, such as traditional therapy. Resilience is an under girding inside-out process.

To successfully foster resilience, it is essential to focus on the natural, internal, innate capacity of young people and adults for healthy functioning. The process of personal change—or self-righting—is documented in the continuously evolving, broadly multi-disciplinary, international body of resilience research. The conceptual Framework for Tapping Resilience was developed by Bonnie Benard and Kathy Marshall to help guide systems in bringing out the best in youth and adults.

Belief in innate human capacity for well-being and the evidence from resilience research are the linchpins in this systems-change approach. See "Reculturing Systems with Resilience/Health Realization," by NRRC Executive Director, Kathy Marshall, in a Carter Center publication, Promoting Positive and Healthy Behaviors in Children. Call 404-420-5165 for a free copy.

Framework for Tapping Resilience
As illustrated here, the essential planning steps examine individual and systemic beliefs, conditions of empowerment, program strategies, and evaluation of both individual and societal outcomes. There are key questions for each planning phase.

"Are all children, youth, and adults at promise?" If so, "What are the conditions of empowerment that research and best practice support?"
"What program models and approaches will create these conditions?"
"What results can we realistically expect for children, youth, adults, and community when we tap resilience?"

Unlike most planning frameworks that are based on problem-focused needs assessment and external strategies or solutions, the foundation for systems-change tapping resilience is prevention planners’ and leaders’ beliefs about human functioning and resilience.

This framework emphasizes the natural, ordinary human capacity for healthy transformation and change. This capacity for resilience, when realized and tapped with effective evidence-based strategies, leads to healthy human development and societal progress across the board, including prevention of substance abuse and related high-risk behaviors.