Resilience is defined as positive adaptation and functioning following exposure to significant risk or adversity (e.g., maltreatment). It is an important topic of investigation in child welfare due to the number of children with such adverse life experiences. While the definition of positive adaptation varies in the literature, maltreatment researchers often define it in terms of the low frequency of behavioural problems, with the consideration that resilience in a child may be fluid across domains of functioning and/or across time. The current dissertation examined resilience among maltreated school-age children living in out-of-home care through three interrelated studies. The first examined multilevel correlates of behavioural resilience among a sample of 5 to 9 year old children living in out-of-home care. The second used developmental trajectory modeling to examine behavioural functioning across time among a sample of school-age children living in out-of-home care (with a particular focus on trajectories of resilience), and the third used semi-structured interviews to gain the often-neglected perspectives on resilience of child welfare workers. Findings across all three studies revealed several factors within various levels of the ecological model that contribute to resilience, including child internal developmental assets and relationships and social support. Furthermore, findings teased apart the distal impact of child welfare workers and agencies. The current dissertation contributes to the existing literature by informing researchers and professionals working within the child welfare sector about the factors that are important for promoting resilience among vulnerable children in out-of-home care with the aim of improving the well-being of this population.

This qualitative study explored the educational journeys of five post-secondary students with learning disabilities from the perspectives of the students and their families. Guided by Ungar’s (2012) ecological conceptualization of resilience and Bronfenbrenner’s (2007) bio-ecological theory of development, this study sought to identify the challenges that these students faced and the capacities and resources within their environments that helped them along their journeys. Data collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the students and their families and analyzed inductively revealed that while each student’s educational journey was unique, most of the participants followed a similar path. Common themes that emerged in the participants’ journeys included: early academic or socio-emotional challenges, early diagnosis and intervention, common family characteristics and parent support, development of self-awareness and self-advocacy in the students over time, goal setting and determination, the important yet complex role of peers, and the impact, both positive and negative, of teachers. The participants identified a number of interactions at both the microsystem and mesosystem levels that helped the students through their educational journeys. The ongoing interactions that occurred between the students and their parents, teachers, and peers at the microsystem level helped shape and develop the capacities they needed in order to negotiate for the supports and resources that sustained their well-being. These capacities included an awareness and understanding of their learning disabilities and themselves as learners, the self-advocacy skills they needed in order to seek out and negotiate for the supports and accommodations that would help them succeed, the ability to set lofty, yet attainable goals and the perseverance to work towards these goals in spite of setbacks and challenges, and the willingness to use the supports and resources that were available to them. The interactions that occurred among the students’ environments at the mesosystem were important as well, as they helped ensure that the resources they needed would be provided for them. The mesosystem level interactions included open and honest communication between the home and school environments as well as a solid link between the home and community environments so that the parents were able to seek out the appropriate supports in the community. These findings give voice to students with learning disabilities and their families and inform educators in how they can help other families navigate their way to the resources and supports within their environments that can sustain their wellbeing and support them through their educational journeys.

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This dissertation research has two purposes: (1) to broaden our knowledge on trauma resilience, and (2) to propose and test a methodology to help a development worker develop a program to address trauma resilience while taking into account the local context. To do this a group of Israeli experts on trauma resilience was recruited, for the purpose of developing a set of axioms about trauma resilience and how these axioms have been or should be applied in Israel. Israel has had to face ongoing terror and war through its history, which has led to a very experienced professional class of academics and practitioners in trauma resilience. The first part of the paper discusses the purpose of the research and the concept behind the research; the use of an expert panel, the Variable Generating Activity (VGA), and the Delphi Technique. The literature review on trauma resilience concentrates on research done in Israel dealing with trauma and trauma resilience and helps develop the framework to categorize the trauma resilience axioms around different societal contexts of analysis: individual, family, community, and national. There were 83 axioms identified. These axioms served as the basis for two follow-up surveys of the Expert Panel. The first survey asked the Panel to rate the 83 axioms identified from the interviews using a 5-point Likert scale (strongly disagree "u2013 strongly agree), and the second survey was to allow the expert panel to provide examples of how the top consensus axioms have been or should be applied in Israel. The methodology was able to successfully broaden our understanding of trauma resilience with the identification of 83 trauma resilience axioms. The axioms spanned all four contexts of analysis, but the majority of trauma resilience axioms, 59%, focused on the individual context. The top consensus axioms emphasized the importance of connections and support within and between contexts, also resilience characteristics within individuals and communities were identified. The methodology also was able to identify strategies to address the axioms. These ideas could help a development worker to develop a plan to address trauma resilience and to take local perspectives and ideas into account. / Eric Corzine

Background: the impetus for this study emanated from Covid-19 crisis in the context of Sweden's business environment in which numerous disruptions in business operations have been experienced. Organizational resilience has been selected as a positive strategic response by which resilience capabilities of sit-in restaurant managers in handling disasters and crises play an integral role so as to achieve future organizational success and continuity.  Purpose: To apply resilience theory and develop some underlying themes from effective application of  resilience strategies in sit-in restaurants during Covid-19 crisis. This thesis sought to identify similarities and differences in the application of organizational resilience strategies during crises. Resilience strategies categorized into four by Hillmann and Guenther (2020), that is, organizational flexibility, organizational adaptive capacity, organizational change capacity and organizational buffering capacity  were tested and laid the foundation for development of new theoretical framework.   Methodology: A qualitative study that involved six sit-in restaurants were randomly selected and the underlying themes of their resilience capabilities were analyzed. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were used to gather empirical data. Six interviews were conducted in which sit-in restaurant managers in Sweden were the interview participants. Findings: Research findings revealed that some sit-in restaurant managers were more resilient than others thereby contributing to survival of restaurants that they managed during crisis. Some managers only applied a selection of resilience strategies leading to declined resilience capabilities in managing crises contributing to business failure whereas an integrated approach in application of all resilience strategies contributed to effective crisis management. These findings laid the foundation for the development of new theory in organizational resilience.

In this study, I investigated the relationship between positive self-talk, autonomy, and resilience in a sample of adults residing in America (n=177). Forty percent of American adults (n=1031) report daily stressors (Almeida, Wethington, & Kessler, 2002). Even comparatively minor life stressors can have a negative impact on one’s well-being over time (Almeida, 2005). Resilience, the ability to manage and recover from stress, may be an important factor in long-term health and well-being (Almeida, 2005). Positive self-talk has been identified as a possible target for resilience building interventions. However, positive self-talk appears to benefit some people more than others. One possible factor in the differential impact of positive self-talk may be autonomous functioning. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate whether one’s level of autonomy would influence how they use and interpret their self-talk and how that impacts their resilience, as such autonomous functioning was examined as a possible moderator in the relationship between self-talk and resilience. A sample of American adults were recruited through Amazon’s MTurk system and asked to complete an online survey. The survey included measures designed to assess for self-talk type and frequency, daily hassles stress, level of autonomy, and level of resilience. Results indicated that positive self-talk was not a predictor of high levels of resilience. Nor was autonomous functioning found to moderate the relationship between self-talk and resilience. However, autonomous functioning was a significant predictor of resilience. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The conceptual use of resilience has gained much popularity since the 1970s, positioning post-trauma resilience parallel to the paradigm of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder to offer a new possibility for healing and a new understanding of illness and suffering during the course of a neoliberal turn in psychiatry. In this thesis, it is shown how suffering and vulnerability becomes a source of authenticity rather than a source of a pathological illness. Through fieldwork with Resilience Summit, an alternative private counselling practice for psychotherapy that combines a feminist intersectional approach to traumatology, resilience is approached as a prototype capable of changing subjectivities because it permeates everyday feelings and actions. It does so by utilizing the flexible framework of resilience, as both inherent and cultivated, to create new capabilities, existential perspectives, and relationships in a therapeutic social network. There is the reconstruction of a condition of being through life narratives that are formed and reworked by the labour of emotional regulation and interaction. A new sense of resilient identity can consequently follow by achieving posttraumatic growth and collective engagement. However, Resilience Summit operates by means of affective governance which has been seen in contemporary resilience neoliberal discourses. It is possible to question to which degree Resilience Summit embraces neoliberal discourses of resilience in the context of a private practice.

Dans un contexte biophysique caractérisé par d’importants changements socio-environnementaux,l’objectif principal de la thèse vise à comprendre dans quelle mesure les pratiques agropastorales modulent dans l’espace et dans le temps la vulnérabilité et l’adaptabilité des agro-écosystèmes et des sociétés agropastorales du Sahel. Afin d’atteindre le but visé, cette problématique a été envisagée à l’échelle macro-régionale, celle du Sahel,en s’appuyant sur trois sites d’étude micro-régionaux à savoir le Ferlo (Sénégal) ; le Gourma (Mali) et le Fakara (Niger) au sein desquels les perceptions et les représentations des sociétés ont été étudiées dans un échantillon de villages et de campements.La méthode d’analyse élaborée comporte deux volets :1) un travail de cartographie par télédétection basé sur le traitement d’images satellites, et 2) des analyses géo-textuelles basées sur la lexicométrie à partir d’entretiens semi-directifs. La cartographie par télédétection a permis d’établir un diagnostic aux échelles micro-régionales et locales sur l’évolution du couvert végétal depuis les années 70 jusqu’en 2010. Du diagnostic tiré d’une approche multiscalaire, il ressort des contrastes intra et inter régionaux dans l’évolution de la couverture du sol par la végétation qui invitent à nuancer les observations faisant état d’un reverdissement du Sahel. L’articulation de la télédétection avec les enquêtes de terrain a permis d’appréhender l’évolution des ressources végétales d’une part, et d’autre part d’examiner la diversité des réponses données par les sociétés rurales du Sahel à la crise climatique des années 70 et 80, et aux évolutions socio-économiques récentes qu’ont connu leur pays et leur région. A travers la lexicométrie, des analyses géo-textuelles basées sur les entretiens semi-directifs ont permis d’approcher les perceptions des agropasteurs au sujet de la vulnérabilité et de la résilience des ressources naturelles. A la lumière des perceptions exprimées, les pratiques adaptatives ont été appréhendées dans leur variété. Il en ressort des reconfigurations socio-spatiales dans les trajectoires des activités agricoles et pastorales qui expliquent en partie les contrastes intra et inter régions observés entre le Ferlo, le Gourma et le Fakara. / In a biophysical context characterized by important socioenvironmental changes, the main objective of this PhD is to understand how much agropastoral practices modulatein space and time the vulnerability and adaptability of agroecosystems and sahelians agropastoral societies. To reach this target, this question has been applied at macro-regional scale, relying on three micro-regional study areas: Ferlo (Senegal); Gourma (Mali) and Fakara (Niger) in which perceptions and representations of societies have been studied in a sample of villages and camps. The method developed in this PhD has two components: 1) remote sensing mapping based on satellite image processing, and 2) geo-textual analyses based on lexicometry from semi-structured interviews. The remote sensing mapping allowed to diagnose micro-regional and local scales on land cover change since the 70s until 2010. The diagnosis, based on a multiscale approach, shows intra and inter regional contrasts in the evolution of soil cover by vegetation that invite to nuance observations indicating a greening of Sahel. The articulation of remote sensing with field investigations helped to understand, first the evolution of plant resources, then to consider the variety of responses from the Sahel rural societies to the 70’s and 80’s climate crisis, and to the recent socio-economic changes experienced by sahelian countries. Through lexicometry, geo-textual analysis based on semi-structured interviews allowed to approach the livestock farmer’s perception about the vulnerability and resilience of natural resources. Thanks to the expressed perceptions, the adaptive practices were identified in their variety. It enabled to show the sociospatial reconfigurations in the trajectories of agricultural and pastoral activities that partly explain the contrasts within and between regions observed in Ferlo, Gourma and Fakara.