You are here

Handbook for Working with Children and Youth
Share
Share

Handbook for Working with Children and Youth
Pathways to Resilience Across Cultures and Contexts

Edited by:

May 2005 | 552 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

"To study resilience one should adopt a fundamental humility about oneself and one's culture and society and simultaneously a respect for the human strength of others. The chapters in this book take these three cautions seriously, and offer a convincing demonstration that resilience is indeed a many-splendored thing." --James Garbarino, Cornell University    

The Handbook For Working With Children and Youth: Pathways To Resilience Across Cultures and Contexts examines lives lived well despite adversity. Calling upon some of the most progressive thinkers in the field, it presents a groundbreaking collection of original writing on the theories, methods of study, and interventions that promote resilience. Unlike other works that have left largely unquestioned their own culture-bound interpretations of the ways children and youth survive and thrive, this volume explores the multiple paths children follow to health and well-being in diverse national and international settings. It demonstrates the connection between social and political health resources and addresses the more immediate concerns of how those who care for children create the physical, emotional, and spiritual environments in which resilience is nurtured.   

Key Features

  • Cross-cultural.  Illustrates the rich variety of culturally embedded pathways by which children navigate toward health and well-being
  • Multidisciplinary.  Draws upon international experts utilizing both quantitative and qualitative studies from psychology, social work, psychiatry, nursing, education, criminology, child and youth care, community health, and family therapy 
  • Comprehensive.  Provides broad developmental perspectives on resilience, from theory and research methods to interventions with individuals, families, and communities 
  • Connects theory to practice.  Clarifies the construct of resilience from the viewpoint of resilience researchers and practitioners in health-related disciplines from different methodological paradigms within the social sciences and human services

Academics, graduate students, and professionals studying or working in human service fields such as human development and family studies, education, social work, child and youth care work, developmental psychology/applied developmental science, child psychiatry, nursing, and family therapy will benefit from this Handbook. In essence, anyone who works with youth or is interested in the developmental issues related to children and youth in clinical, residential, or community settings will find Ungar’s Handbook to be of great value.  

 


 
Acknowledgements
James Garbarino
FOREWORD
Michael Ungar
INTRODUCTION: Resilience across cultures and contexts
 
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
Jo Boyden and Gillian Mann
1. Children's Risk, Resilience and Coping in Extreme Situations
Laurie McCubbin and Hamilton McCubbin
2. Culture and Ethnic Identity in Family Resilience: Dynamic Processes in Trauma and Transformation of Indigenous People
Joyce West Stevens
3. Lessons Learned from Poor Urban African American Youth: Resilient Strengths in Coping with Adverse Environments
Jane Gilgun and Laura Abrams
4. Gendered Adaptations, Resilience, and the Perpetration of Violence
Jacqueline McAdam-Crisp, Lewis Aptekar and Wanjiku Kironyo
5. The Theory of Resilience and its application to street children in the Minority and Majority world
Isaac Prilleltensky and Ora Prilleltensky
6. Beyond resilience: Blending Wellness and Liberation in the Helping Professions
Cindy Blackstock and Nico Trocmé
7. Community Based Child Welfare for Aboriginal Children: Supporting Resilience through Structural Change
Fred Besthorn
8. Beetles, Bullfrogs and Butterflies: Contributions of Natural Environment to Childhood Development and Resilience
 
METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES IN RESILIENCE RESEARCH
William Barton
9. Methodological challenges in the study of resilience
Michael Ungar and Eli Teram
10. Qualitative resilience research: Contributions and risks
John LeBlanc, Pam Talbott and Wendy Craig
11. Psychosocial health in youth: An international perspective
Laura Camfield and Allister McGregor
12. Resilience and wellbeing in developing countries
Michael Ungar and Linda Liebenberg
13. The International Resilience Project:
A mixed methods approach to the study of resilience across cultures
 
INTERVENING ACROSS CULTURES AND CONTEXTS
Zahava Solomon and Avital Laufer
14. Israeli youth cope with terror: Vulnerability and resilience
Philip Cook and Leslie DuToit
15. Overcoming Adversity with Children Affected by HIV/AIDS in Indigenous South African Cultural Contexts
Marion Brown and Marc Colbourne
16. Bent but not broken: Exploring queer youth resilience
Alean Al-Krenawi and Vered Slonim-Nevo
17. Psycho-Social Functioning of Children from Monogamous and Polygamous Families: Implications for Practice
Barbara J. Friesen and Eileen Brennan
18. Strengthening families and communities: System-building for resilience
Kwai-Yau Wong and Lee Tak-Yan
19. Professional discourse of social workers working with at-risk young people in Hong Kong: Risk or resilience
Jerry Thomas and George Menamparampil
20. Resilient Youth in North East India: The role of faith based organizations in communities affected by violence
Ken Barter
21. Alternative approaches to promoting the health and well-being of children: Accessing community resources to support resilience
Nancy MacDonald, Joan Glode and Fred Wien
22. Respecting Aboriginal Families: Customary care and Family group conferencing
Alexander Makhnach and Anna Laktionova
23. Social and cultural roots of Russian youth resilience: Interventions by the state, society, and the family
Mary Armstrong, Beth Stroul and Roger Boothroyd
24. Intercepts of resilience and Systems of Care
Scotney D. Evans and Isaac Prilleltensky
25. Youth Civic Engagement: Promise and Peril
Toine van Teeffelen, Hania Bitar, Saleem Habash
26. Resilience in Palestinian Youth
Wanda Bernard and David Este
27. Resiliency and Young African-Canadian Males
Luis Duque, Joanne Klevens, Michael Ungar and Anna Lee
28. Preventing violence among Children in Colombia

"This well-written handbook explores the empirical and theoretical work on resilience or 'human strength,' that many children and youth possess despite experiencing traumatic events or negative-abusive environments. . . . What makes this handbook both unique and cutting-edge is its focus on cross-cultural and multicultural issues regarding resilience. . . . Highly recommended."

G.C. Gamst
University of La Verne
CHOICE
Key features

Cross-cultural.  A comprehensive work that shows how children navigate their ways to health through a variety of culturally embedded pathways, this is the first book to "deconstruct" the Eurocentric bias in how resilience is studied, theorized, and created and to fully account for the cultural context.

Multidisciplinary.  The volume draws together experts in related fields of study, internationally, reporting on both quantitative and qualitative studies from Psychology, Social Work, Psychiatry, Nursing, Education, Criminology, Child and Youth Care, Community Health, and Family Therapy.

Comprehensive.  The book articulates a broad developmental perspective on resilience, covering the full range of topics in the field as it moves from theory to research methods, to interventions with individuals, families, and communities.

Connects theory to practice.  The volume makes explicit how the work done by resilience researchers complements that done by practitioners in health-related disciplines from different methodological paradigms, linking chapters together around common themes that present a holistic contribution to this emerging field of study.