Resilience, as a trait, process or outcome, is the negation of an undesirable outcome or of an expected maladjustment in the context of an adversity. Young people represent a developmental stage in which there is a vulnerability to experience deleterious outcomes during adversity. The literature on risk and promotive factors for resilience in youth is compounded by narrative reviews which have not applied a rigorous search methodology and which have failed to operationalise resilience. To date, the majority of research in resilience for emotional distress has focussed on data collected in high income countries. The first paper presents a systematic review of the literature on risk and promotive factors for trait resilience in youth. The findings indicate that there are differences in the magnitude of association between trait resilience and various risk and promotive factors, which were conceptualised into biological, intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental factors. The largest body of evidence reviewed pertained to intrapersonal risk and promotive factors for trait resilience. Factors predicting trait resilience were also identified. Implications for future research include addressing the methodological and sampling limitations of the reviewed studies. The second paper presents an empirical study investigating factors within a microsystem which differentiate adolescents with resilience for emotional distress and those vulnerable to emotion distress in India (<i>N</i> = 967) and in Peru (<i>N</i> = 606). Factors which predict low emotional distress in each country and factors which differentiate between low emotional distress Indian and Peruvian adolescents were additionally investigated. A cross-sectional exploratory investigation of secondary data was employed. The findings suggest that the profile of low vulnerability for emotional distress differs between different cultural contexts and contribute to an extraordinarily limited evidence-base in low and middle income contexts. Extensive additional research is required to delineate culturally-specific profiles of resilience for emotional distress in a bid to develop culturally-sensitive treatment targets.

Ethnic minority children living in relative poverty are a high-risk group for poor outcomes in all aspects of wellbeing. The relationship and interactions between child and parent are a key part of child development and a platform for providing positive experiences which can benefit a child’s wellbeing. There is therefore a need to identify what facilitates wellbeing for ethnic minority children in low-socioeconomic status families. By focusing on protective and promotive factors encompassing the parent-child relationship, factors can be identified which can use family strengths as a basis for interventions and practice within healthcare, social work and education, which is what this systematic literature review set out to do. Through a diligent search of the literature, 12 articles were identified for review according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, containing research on African American, Roma, Native American and Hispanic/Latino youth. The results inform how child wellbeing can be facilitated through several parental factors, including parental involvement and support, maternal attachment, paternal warmth and ethnic identity and ethnic socialization. The findings also indicate a need for further studies on paternal influence on wellbeing in especially Native American and Roma youth, as well as the impact of ethnic socialization on youth wellbeing. Parents have an important role to play in child wellbeing and are vital partners alongside the child when planning interventions. Considerations naturally need to be shown for each ethnic minority, the child’s setting and its individual characteristics.