Today, we have a very special guest with us who's coming to us via Skype. Dr. Michael Ungar, he's the founder and co director of the Resilience Research Centre which is located in Halifax in Canada. And he's also the author of a number of books including two recent books that are focused on cultural processes in the study of resilience, so, welcome, Doctor Ungar. >> Real pleasure to be here. >> Okay, well the class knows something about the Resilience Research Centre just a teeny bit so I thought that would be a good place to start. Tell us about the centre, what they do and what their goals are. >> For the last decade or so it's principally our research centre, so we've been looking across all kinds of different contexts and cultures. Both here in North America, as well as around the globe, we can try to understand what this idea to the Brazilians looks like, specially when you have children, youth and families. Some adult populations who are really experiencing exceptional amounts of stress, or adversity, war, poverty, racism, all the kings the big factors that affect people's lives. We also have been developing research tools and questionnaires. And a lot of those things we actually give away for free. We encourage people to sort of come to us, the other thing we, of course do, is we support evaluations which are looking at programs, and how they develop, in terms of resilience. And we also try and take these ideas, what we're learning about from our research and evaluations, and actually apply them to models of clinical practice. So in other words, when you're actually down at the level of working with a child or a family, what do you actually do? What kinds of interventions are effective? How do you actually talk about positive aspects of that child's life or coping strategies that might be protective. In context, where you don't forget that there's a lot of adversity around the child. So you're really looking at how these protective factors that we're learning about on the research side. How can we actually help grow those, facilitate those, in individual's lives? >> Well I'm curious because you've done this exciting work all over the world, and you've had input from people all over the world. Have you found protective factors that are common in many places of the world? >> That's an interesting tension there, I'm sure you find this in your own work as well, that tension between homogeneity and heterogeneity, you're saying there's some differences of course. So I'd say, yeah we have identified a few things that keep appearing, things or tensions if you will. That keep appearing whether it's Colombia or China, or South Africa Aboriginal communities in North America or Australia. It's seem's like we keep saying things like of course relationships being really powerful. That's a given, but it's been interesting that we've actually been seeing that for populations under adversity relationships don't always have to do with their parents. Because often in those contexts, the parents are actually not the ones who are around in the child's life. So we've seen a lot of other kinds of relationships, be it with grandparents or uncles or aunts, or sort of extended kinship networks. Bus drivers, social workers, [LAUGH] it's like hydras. There's vast networks of relationships that support people, so those appear, we also see the theme of identity keep coming up. But in the sense of a protective factor, is a powerful identity that we can wear. That gives us that buffer against other people wanting to define us as damaged or somehow a problem or a product of a bad environment. Other themes, power and control, also studied often as the term efficacy, that notion that we generally speaking. You're seeing protective processes that give people more power, and control, some decision making over what they need. And that could be a child with a physical disability, or an intellectual disability. Right through to people who are being racially marginalized. You see those same patterns, because we work a lot with people who are excluded, we see the theme of social justice. Though people don't usually that phrase, they tend to speak more in terms of things I want to be treated fairly in my community. Whether your soft identify is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. Child or if it's more of your community having been historically marginalized as in the case of First Nations people in Canada, that type of thing. We also sees a theme of basic material resources, I'm sure you know this very well. Most people in the audience know that if you don't have food and that child doesn't have clothing that doesn't stigmatize them and they don't have access to safe streets and schools. It's really hard to do well, you can't just sort of sit in front of a mirror and say, everything's great, it's a little bit better when the world reinforces that, and gives you what you need. Social cohesion tends to be the sixth cluster, we've seen things of spirituality, sense of belonging. What I heard kids just simply say to me is, when I get up in the morning someone notices I'm there, and I don't get out of bed. They notice that I'm not there, they don't show up on my school, those kinds of experiences and, of course, the seventh thing. One of the other seven common factors we keep seeing tends to be something to do with culture. And that can be some sort of sense that I belong within some continuity over time, with a set of practices, beliefs, a way my community celebrates. All those types of things, so we see those seven themes, but of course, what that looks like if you're a child whose been orphaned in South Africa. Or you're an economic migrant in Beijing, or you're a child living with a disability in Montreal, or for that matter if you're an African American. Who's being raised by a single parent, or something like that. In each context, rural, urban, race context, sexual orientation. All these factors seem to collide to, people seem to take those seven things. I almost want to got my hands together, want to juggle them, and see how the seven are connected. And in every culture and context, we've seen people make decisions, in a sense, based on the resources that are available to them. How they're going to find as many of those seven things as they possibly can. >> Well, it sounds like you would agree with the notion that there are many pathways to resilience. And you see both common and unique elements that make a big difference in young people around the world. >> Absolutely, there's, the more you talk to kids the more you see perhaps some common protective factors. But why it looks like at the very end, there's so much variation in what a child will look like. I met working children, who you'd never think of, here are these kids in horrible situations. And yet, somehow they would say that, no, no, my situation, given what I have and given the economic prospects of my family and how badly the schooling is available in my community. This is still a successful way that I survive, though it's always nice of course to find kids who are, well resourced and are given the love and attention. What they need to do well in the schools, they're inspiring, we meet those kids. So the paths can look pretty different depending on what we do in term, we the people who set social policy. Who supply funding, who provide schooling, help make families safe. There's a remarkable fit between the individual's capacity. And I'm sure this course is explaining the fit between the individual and, of course, the environment. And what kind of social or physical ecology in how we respond. And I know, as a centre, as a group of colleagues. We've been really focused on trying to understand that dynamic. >> Okay, has there been something that really surprised you, in the resilience you've seen around the world? >> Yes, I'd say that probably the part that's been most interesting has been finding these hidden processes. When I called hidden resilience, it's some times, you see these processes that, they haven't been made in sort of the regular psychological literature. Because larger people who of course look like me and talk like me and have the kind of history and background. But I have, having been the ones actually writing the textbooks or writing the studies. So sometimes you get in there, we actually do things like, we film kids, right. We actually put a camera on a child, an adolescent, for an entire day in their life. So we'll be actually capturing a child who's living in poverty or a child who's racially marginalized or a child living with a disability. And we'll follow them all day long, and see these processes that the kids themselves if you ask them, what makes you do well in life, they probably couldn't even say it. But some of those processes or things like one makes I've loved, is this common idea of giving back to your family and your community. It's funny because nowadays we have this kind of hyper over protective parenting thing going on in some parts of the world, and certainly in my community. And yet when we look at resilience I've been seeing a strong pattern towards kids surviving well because they are asked to make a genuine contribution to their family. Not just chores I'm talking they're being relied upon to actually participate in the economy of a family and they are relied upon by their communities. They're seen as competent rather than as just, wait you don't have to do anything until you're older. That's been a bit of an interesting pattern that we've seen, I think the other thing we're sort of noticing is certain personalities to better in certain contexts. Whether that's you're outgoing, gregarious, and stuff, seeds a very entrepreneurial kind of life style, very individualistic. So that kind of personality might fit in a context your country or mine. But in other countries, sometimes it's the more quiet, gentle, forgiving child that is more collectivist thinking, the more dutiful child. And I'm thinking some parts of Asia where we've done these studies, it changes, doesn't it. When I saw how Japanese children recovered from the tsunami, and how they were effected, you begin to see these very, very small patterns in the country specific to how children cope. Going back and studying extra hard, I wish my own children would do that. But, this kind of, whatever the culture sort of rewards as something that's very important to the child. So you begin to see these very nuanced patterns inside different contexts that maybe haven't been well written about. The other one, say in North America, is that immigrants, of course there's a lot of challenges being an immigrant, but you think about it. You think about being bilingual or trilingual, is a terrific kid in marker resilience. And yet, we never really talk about that as researchers, because, I mean we don't tend to assess. I mean, imagine you set up the measures of resilience and you're asking all the dominant culture. Typically kids who have been raised in Canada, the United States, you wouldn't necessarily ask those kids, do you speak more than one language? And yet, of course, if you're dealing with Rwandan refugees or immigrants from former Baltic states, or something like that. All of a sudden, the question of are you bilingual so you can maintain cultural continuity with your grandparents, as you Skype them, as you sort of talk to them. Those kinds of skills become these protective factors that maintain cultural continuity and become extremely important to their lives and their futures. >> We've observed the same thing with the refugees and immigrants here in Minnesota, that having those kind of language skills appears to be an important protective factor. Well, you and your group and all your collaborators around the world are doing some of the most exciting and innovative work on culture and cultural processes. The diverse pathways to resilience, I'm wondering what you see as the most exciting directions for the future? >> Probably a few things will stand out, one lets say that I'm beginning to see a pattern. Where we are talking less about individualistic crimes and notions of self protection and coping and all those kinds of things. I think we're seeing a very much a shift towards, collectivist ideas and community building and some of those ideas which sort of are less focused on. What I can do to survive thrive under adversity and more about what my, we as a community, as a global community can do to help me to survive and thrive. So it's one shift, it's more collectivist thinking, we see it in places like South Africa and Tanzania and throughout really different parts of the globe. Probably the other thing I see is, an interesting one, I've kind of hinted at this is more identification of processes that are not Donald in economically or high income countries. So we're beginning to see these patterns appear from other countries, whether it's the middle income countries China and Brazil. We're beginning to see some information coming out of those context. The example of contributions to your family, welfare, which are more powerful, in places where children are seen differently and gauged differently. So what I am saying is, much more conversations coming out of the economic self. And those patterns, actually were, those people actually. Getting published and talking to people in other economically, not the high income countries. So there's beginning to become exchange to people with a point of view on what makes us resilient and probably a third part is just social policy shifts. The uptake in government using this idea of resilience as a way of organizing social policy, community development, funding tax practices and a few increases in clinical. There's a really nice shift away from just treating disorder and breakdown. Well, to begin to think about how do we build capacity in our communities, so that post Hurricane Katrina, flooding in Western Canada. Or something like a major airline disaster, something that there's some capacity in the community. To respond hopefully and that's what I'm seeing very much also shift in the terms of the up take of the concept of resilience. >> Okay well I just want to express my deep appreciation on behalf of the class who are watching here, for you joining us in this conversation. And I also want to personally thank you for your tremendous leadership in the work that the centre's doing around the world. And fostering the future of the work on the social ecologies of resilience. >> And coming from you, that's a very great complement. I really appreciate this, and all the best to you and of course all the students. This is definitely the next wave of these ideas taking off. >> Thank you so much.
