1. Resiliency in Action
WATCH Professional Development
August 27, 2012

2. What is Resiliency?

3. What Do You Think?
• Are we born with the ability to bounce back or
can we develop resiliency skills?

4. People bounce back in two ways:
Draw on own
internal
resources
Protective
Factors
Encounter
people/groups
& activities
that help their
resiliency skills
emerge

5. What Can We Do To Help?
Four Basic Characteristics of Resiliency
Building That Add the Power of
“Protective Factors” to People’s Lives

6. Communicate “The Resiliency Attitude”
Adopt a “Strengths Perspective”
Surround a Person/Family with Elements
from the Resiliency Wheel
Give It Time.

7. Communicate “The Resiliency Attitude”
“You have what it takes to get through this!”
“What is right with you is more powerful than
anything that is wrong.”
Must be aware and deal with the problems while
also drawing upon the strengths of the person to
help him/her solve the problem.
* Eliminate Negative Self-Talk

8. Communicating the Positive
How do you communicate the resiliency attitude?
“Being Self-Aware”
Positive Thinking: Reduce Stress by Eliminating Negative Self Talk Mayo Clinic

9. Adopt a “Strengths Perspective”
“Exercise your strengths rather than focusing
on your weaknesses
When a person can’t identify her strengths, ask her to think about a
problem or challenge in her life she had recently overcome.
Then ask her to: “List what within yourself or outside yourself helped you
overcome this problem or challenge.”
Ask her to compare her list to the “Personal Resiliency Builders” list.
Find some that you have used.
Ask: “How can you use these same strengths to successfully deal
with current problems in your life?

10. Personal Resiliency Builders
Individual Protective Factors that Facilitate Resiliency
Sociability/ability to be a friend/ability to form
Relationships
positive relationships
Service Gives of self in service to others and/or a cause
Uses life skills, including good decision-making,
Life Skills
assertiveness, and impulse control
Humor Has a good sense of humor
Bases choices/decisions on internal evaluation
Inner Direction
(internal locus of control)
Perceptiveness Insightful understanding of people and situations
“Adaptive” distancing from unhealthy people and situations/
Independence
autonomy
Positive View of Optimism / expects a positive future
Personal Future

11. Personal Resiliency Builders
Individual Protective Factors that Facilitate Resiliency
Can adjust to change; can bend as necessary to positively
Flexibility
cope with situations
Love of Learning Capacity for and connection to learning
Self-Motivation Internal initiative and positive motivation from within
Competence Is “good at something” / personal competence
Self-Worth Feelings of self-worth and self-confidence
Spirituality Personal faith in something greater
Perseverance Keeps on despite difficulty; doesn’t give up
Expresses self through artistic endeavor, or uses creative
Creativity
imagination, thinking, or other processes

12. Next Steps

13. Surround a Person/Family with Elements
from the Resiliency Wheel
Elements of the Resiliency Wheel are Environmental
Protective Conditions that Help Develop Resiliency in
Individuals and Families