This is a qualitative research project that seeks to understand the meanings that Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors (CADC's) have ascribed to their life experiences in relation to their choices about higher education. The participants are four Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors in Oregon who have less than bachelor degrees. The research is based on a case study method of inquiry in which the participants discuss their life experiences and their thoughts about their educations during in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The findings are grouped into two themes that emerged from the data: The themes are: 1) resiliency and 2) personal transformation. In keeping with the literature, this study indicates that people can and do develop resiliency characteristics well into adulthood. It also suggests that reflection can be a vehicle for catharsis and personal transformation. / Graduation date: 2003

This empirical research study focuses on the qualities of resilient adolescents in a technical school. The study indicates why some adolescents in a technical school are resilient, while other adolescents in this technical school are not resilient. Thirty resilient and thirty non-resilient adolescents in a technical school were chosen to participate in the empirical study. The empirical study consisted of quantitative research (a questionaire that was completed by the sixty adolescents), and qualitative research (three chosen resilient adolescents took part in an interview). This study is therefore a mixed methods study. The conclusions of the study were supported by the literature. The qualities of the resilient adolescent in a technical school are similar to the qualities of resilient adolescents in other contexts. Resilient adolescents in this technical school were characterized by protective factors and processes that had their roots in the individual, the community, culture and relationships. This study is an explorative study. More rigorous research is needed before this study's findings can be generalised. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.

In South Africa today many adolescents are faced with having to cope with their parents' divorce. There are many risks that occur when adolescents are faced with divorce. Of late research has suggested that parental divorce is an increasingly common phenomenon in black families, but there is no literature which focuses on what contributes to black adolescents coping resiliently with their parents' divorce. The purpose of this study was to provide answers, by means of a literature review and empirical research, to what the antecedents of resilience are among black adolescents coping resiliently with their parents divorce. This was achieved by using a qualitative phenomenological design: ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with resilient black adolescents coping well with their parents' divorce. This study makes a contribution to theory because it suggests a new resilience -promoting resource for black youth from divorced homes, namely dedicated support from friends and teachers (support that is 'always' available), not noted in previous resilience studies. This study also contributed to theory by confirming that resilience promoting processes such as community-facilitated spaces (hostel residence), extra-curricular activities at school and cultural rites encourage resilience among youth whose parents are divorced. This has not been noted in previous literature studies. The findings of this study were used to draft recommendations for Life Orientation teachers on how to encourage resilience among black South African adolescents coping with the adversities of their parents' divorce. In so doing my study made a potential contribution to practice. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

The focus of this empirical study was on the antecedents of resilience among poor, English second-language (ESL) adolescent learners. The reasons why some adolescents in this situation are resilient and others are not, are indicated in this study. Adolescents qualify as being resilient if they are exposed to significant threat to their development, indicating high risk to the individual, and their adaptation to the threat is successful, due to support, resources or intervention. Thirty three resilient and 32 non -resilient poor, ESL adolescent learners were selected to participate in the empirical study. My study was a mixed method study because I made use of quantitative research (a survey questionnaire completed by the 65 selected learners), and qualitative research (semi-structured interviews with two identified resilient learners and a group interview with elders who are knowledgeable about young people in this community). The conclusions of my study emphasise that dynamic interactions between individual attributes, familial support, community resources, and cultural ties empower some adolescents to overcome hardships and be resilient. My findings are supported by literature. My findings cannot be generalised, as the adolescents in my study were all black, South African youth from an impoverished community in the Vaal Triangle. This is an explorative study, and themes that were identified as contributing to resilience in my study, need to be explored in future studies. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

The purpose of this study was to document, by means of a literature review and empirical research, the phenomenon of resilience among adolescents with learning difficulties (LD). My study was motivated by a gap in current literature. Although there are some South African studies that explore the personal antecedents of resilience in youth with LD, there were almost no studies explaining what interpersonal antecedents might contribute to resilience. The aim of the empirical study was to investigate the phenomenon of resilience among adolescent learners coping with LD. This was done by conducting phenomenological research with ten learners who have LD and attend a school for learners with special learning needs. The findings of the study are in accordance with previous studies that suggest that resilience is encouraged by dynamic processes that are both interpersonal and intrapersonal. This study makes a contribution to theory in that it suggests that resilience among adolescent learners with LD is also encouraged by their home environment and the positive relationship with siblings that might be brought on by parents treating all their children impartially. This has not been noted in previous studies. This study also raises questions about whether inclusion of all learners in mainstream schools are beneficial to learners with LD. Because my study identified interpersonal processes (unconditional acceptance, safe spaces, championship and pedagogical expertise) that promoted resilience among those participants who took part in my study, my study contributes to what was understood about the process of resilience in learners with LD and in so doing contributes to practice in that guidelines could be drafted for Life Orientation teachers based on the findings of this study. These guidelines can enable dedicated teachers to adapt their classroom environment so that a learner with LD can benefit. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.

Caring for an individual with Alzheimer’s disease is especially challenging and impacts every aspect of the lives of the informal caregivers. Informal caregiving is defined as unpaid care provided by family or friends to people with a chronic illness or disability (Young & Newman, 2002). Caregiver burden involves the physical, psychological, social and emotional problems experienced by a caregiver of an impaired loved one (Gwyther & George, 2006). Alzheimer’s disease caregivers report more depression than their caregiving and non-caregiving peers, experience increased physical decline, and often experience financial challenges. Evidence suggests Alzheimer’s disease caregiver burden is a result of both care recipient and caregiver factors. Pearlin et al’s Stress Process model (1990) is widely used to examine triggers in caregiver burden. The model consists of antecedents, stressors, and outcomes. Few studies have examined moderators in the burden process in Alzheimer’s disease caregiving. Whether resilience accounts for variance in outcomes associated with caregiver burden is not addressed in the literature. Data from a convenience sample of Alzheimer’s disease caregivers (N=111) were examined for the purpose of exploring the moderating effect of resilience on the relationship between stressors and caregiver burden predictors. RESULTS: Resilience did not moderate the relationship between the caregiver stressors and caregiver burden. However, results indicated a relationship between resilience and caregiver burden. Specifically, as resilience increases, caregiver burden decreased. This finding highlights the importance of Alzheimer’s caregivers and implementing support and interventions that will increase their resilience.

Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva hur vuxna manliga barn har upplevt och hanterat situationer av att växa upp med en förälder som har psykiska funktionsnedsättningar. Våra frågeställningar utgörs av: Hur upplevde och hanterade vuxna manliga barn till föräldrar med psykisk funktionsnedsättning sin uppväxt? samt Hur har upplevelsen och hanterandet av uppväxten påverkat vuxna manliga barn till föräldrar med psykisk funktionsnedsättning som vuxna? För att kunna svara på frågeställningarna har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ metod och intervjuat fem vuxna manliga barn som haft en sådan uppväxt. Intervjuerna har sedan analyserats genom ett fenomenologiskt förhållningssätt och därmed har vi återberättat informanternas utsagor istället för att tolka dessa. Denna analys har utgått från det empiriska materialet som sedan har kopplats till de valda tidigare forskningarna och teoretiska utgångspunkter. De teoretiska utgångspunkter vi har använt oss av för att ge en tydligare beskrivning av informanternas upplevelser, utgörs av resilience och coping.   Av studiens resultat kan det utläsas att alla fem informanter upplevde sin uppväxt fylld av skamkänslor, ansvar, okunskap om vad som var rätt eller fel, normalt eller inte normalt samt saknad av någon som kunde stödja och hjälpa dem i deras situation. Dessutom framkom det att informanternas vuxna liv var präglat av deras upplevelser under uppväxten. Informanternas hanteringsstrategier varierade både i uppväxten och under vuxenlivet, då det visade sig att informanterna pendlade mellan ansvarstagandet, undvikandestrategier, kriminalitet och missbruk.

As the number of people affected by natural and man-made disasters increases, so does the need for emergency preparedness education. Previous research has indicated that education and training can have an impact on the resiliency of individuals, families, and communities. The use of Extension professionals in regional and county offices across each state is an effective means for education. In this study, family and consumer sciences (FCS) county Extension faculty in the Western Region of the United States were surveyed to determine the best practices used and perceptions of the importance and their ability to educate individuals, families, and communities on emergency preparedness. Many respondents agreed on effective strategies to recruit individuals to Extension programming. Overall, FCS county Extension faculty indicated that emergency preparedness being offered was important; however, they did not think they had adequate knowledge or ability to educate on many emergency preparedness topics.

In this thesis, we consider the problem of diffusing information resiliently in networks that contain misbehaving nodes. Previous strategies to achieve resilient information diffusion typically require the normal nodes to hold some global information, such as the topology of the network and the identities of non-neighboring nodes. However, these assumptions are not suitable for large-scale networks and this necessitates our study of resilient algorithms based on only local information. We propose a consensus algorithm where, at each time-step, each normal node removes the extreme values in its neighborhood and updates its value as a weighted average of its own value and the remaining values. We show that traditional topological metrics (such as connectivity of the network) fail to capture such dynamics. Thus, we introduce a topological property termed as network robustness and show that this concept, together with its variants, is the key property to characterize the behavior of a class of resilient algorithms that use purely local information. We then investigate the robustness properties of complex networks. Specifically, we consider common random graph models for complex networks, including the preferential attachment model, the Erdos-Renyi model, and the geometric random graph model, and compare the metrics of connectivity and robustness in these models. While connectivity and robustness are greatly different in general (i.e., there exist graphs which are highly connected but with poor robustness), we show that the notions of robustness and connectivity are equivalent in the preferential attachment model, cannot be very different in the geometric random graph model, and share the same threshold functions in the Erdos-Renyi model, which gives us more insight about the structure of complex networks. Finally, we provide a construction method for robust graphs.