Abstract
Introduction
Resilience Interventions for Youth in Diverse Populations, edited by S. Prince-Embury and D. H. Saklofske, provides an overview of empirically supported interventions designed to enhance resilience in both clinical and non-clinical populations. The book is an extension of its predecessor, Resilience in Children, Adolescents, and Adults: Translating Research Into Practice (Prince-Embury & Saklofske, 2013) and focuses on the application and evaluation of theoretically driven interventions designed to promote resiliency within home, school, clinical, and recreational environments. The book provides a comprehensive overview of resilience, followed by descriptions of the design, implementation, and assessment of several evidence-based interventions and the associated outcomes for at-risk children and youth. In addition, the chapter authors present evidence from experimental studies, case studies, and everyday clinical practice on a range of interventions implemented at an individual, family, and community level. The book is a useful resource for researchers, clinicians, teachers, and other professionals interested in promoting development for children and youth with unique life circumstances and/or diverse racial, cultural, sexual, socio-economic, and mental health backgrounds. As outlined by Prince-Embury and Saklofske, both prominent researchers within the study of resilience, the purpose of the book is to present theoretically based and empirically supported interventions for children with diverse needs across a variety of contexts.
Content and Structure
The book is divided into three sections encompassing the conceptualization of resilience and the description of several empirically supported interventions designed to enhance resilience in typically developing and clinical populations. The first section of the book provides an overview of current trends and issues associated with the study of resilience and its applications with diverse populations. In these chapters, the authors summarize foundational resilience principles, models, interventions, and measurement tools. In the second and third sections of the book, the authors of each chapter define the construct of resilience and describe the population of interest, intervention method, and the resulting outcomes.
The second section of Resilience Interventions for Youth in Diverse Populations explores an array of resilience interventions designed for school settings and non-clinical populations. The school-based interventions were applied to a variety of populations. For example, one intervention focuses on promoting a positive change in the school climate for at-risk African American and Latino middle school girls (Stephney, White, Far, & Elias, 2014), whereas another focuses on executive functioning for homeless and highly mobile children (Casey et al., 2014). In addition, the authors provided a number of other school-based interventions designed to promote resilience; these were implemented with students from diverse cultural backgrounds, including at-risk North American (e.g., Song, Sikorski, Doll, & Sikorski, 2014), Australian (Worsley, 2014), and Greek (Hatzichristou, Adamopoulou, & Lampropoulou, 2014) students. This section also presents a diverse range of community-based interventions designed for non-clinical populations. For example, one universally implemented intervention targets social and emotional skill development in youth at-risk for anxiety and depression (Barret, Cooper, & Gallegos Guajardo, 2014). Other interventions described utilize a variety of resources and strategies, such as the use of multimedia (Oades-Sese, Cohen, Allen, & Lewis, 2014) and curricula (Tobin Smith, LeBuffe, Alleyne, Mackrain, & Likins, 2014), within home and community settings to promote resiliency.
The third and final section of Resilience Interventions for Youth in Diverse Populations explores interventions for clinical groups. A variety of clinical populations are explored, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, learning disability, gender dysphoria, pediatric chronic illness, and impaired social functioning. For each of these populations, a specific resilience-focused intervention is described. The interventions are implemented in a number of settings, including clinical group therapy, individual therapy, schools, and home environments. Each intervention is unique, targets different aspects important to resilience, and includes strategies to promote resilience (e.g., positive thinking, physical activity, relaxation, and self-regulation).
Overall, this volume addresses the multitude of outcomes associated with resilience interventions within clinical and non-clinical populations. The diverse array of interventions discussed within this book provides a comprehensive overview of relevant findings pertaining to resilience across diverse populations, lending to its widespread utility and accessibility to various audiences. Moreover, the book explores research and interventions from a wide range of countries and cultures making it universally applicable.
Critique
The foremost strength of Resilience Interventions for Youth in Diverse Populations is the variety of populations and intervention methods used to increase resilience in at-risk children. More specifically, the authors describe interventions targeted for a range of ages (i.e., preschool-aged children to young adults) as well as a variety of cultural, racial, and clinical backgrounds. In addition, the interventions presented differ in their duration and structure (e.g., individual, family, and community-level implementation). For each chapter, the authors present a definition of resilience, which provides context for the theoretical foundation of each intervention. As well, it offers the reader an enriched understanding of resilience and a greater awareness of the slight variations in definition. Furthermore, the structure of each chapter allows readers to access relevant theoretical models and interventions without requiring the reading of previous chapters. Last, this volume provides a global perspective, with contributors from North America as well as Australia and Europe.
As with any volume, there are minor areas of weakness. As might be expected in an edited volume, there was some variability in writing style between the chapters. Some chapters were written in more of a journal article style with clearly defined methodology sections and solid empirical results and discussion while other chapters provided much more anecdotal and clinical evidence, often conveyed through stories or single case examples, with less evidence of research support. While there are advantages to both styles, having more concrete evidence (e.g., some indication of empirical data) to support findings would be beneficial in some chapters. The editors did a commendable job ensuring coverage of a diverse range of more vulnerable groups, including the chapters incorporating homeless, low socio-economic status, transgendered, and culturally diverse populations. The section of this volume devoted to clinical populations was more limited, although it is acknowledged that one book cannot cover all possible population ranges. Hopefully, future volumes will expand the range chapters on building resilience in populations such as First Nations/Metis/Inuit, children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or more specific social-emotional challenges, although it is acknowledged that one book cannot cover all possible population ranges.
Together, this volume provides an excellent resource for practitioners and researchers in the area of resilience. The editors have done a commendable job assembling a volume that allows for a greater understanding of resilience interventions across diverse and international populations and is an excellent follow up to the previous resilience book by Prince-Embury and Saklofske (2013).