Michael Ungar, Ph.D., is a Family Therapist and Professor of Social Work at Dalhousie University where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience. His research on resilience around the world and across cultures has made him the number one ranked Social Work scholar in the world, with numerous educational institutions, government agencies, and not-for-profits relying on his research and clinical work to guide their approaches to nurturing child, family, organizational and community wellbeing under stress. He the author of 18 books for mental health professionals, educators, caregivers and employers, including his most recent works The Limits of Resilience: When to Persevere, When to Change, and When to Quit, a book for individuals and organizations under stress, Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success, a book about our emerging understanding of resilience as more than individual grit, and Working with Children and Youth with Complex Needs: 20 Skills to Build Resilience, a book for mental health professionals and educators. As well as having received numerous awards for his work, including the Canadian Association of Social Workers National Distinguished Service Award and being named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Dr. Ungar maintains a blog, Nurturing Resilience, which can be read on Psychology Today’s website.

Session Overview: “Diagnosing” Resilience Across Cultures and Contexts: Seeing the Positives in Young People Even When There are Serious Problems 

With growing interest in resilience among mental health care providers globally, there is a need for a simple way to think about the complex interactions that predict which young people will do well despite the seriousness of the challenges they face. A focus on resilience helps us to understand individual adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies, as well as the social and physical ecologies that facilitate positive developmental processes in contexts of adversity. Using case examples of children, youth and families that have been exposed to high levels of adversity such as family violence, mental illness of a child or caregiver, natural disasters, forced migration, poverty, racism and other types of social marginalization and political conflict, Michael will show how we can assess childhood resilience and use that assessment to guide practice. He will show that by “diagnosing” resilience, we are in a better position to design interventions that are sensitive to the individual, family, school and community factors that influence a young person’s wellbeing. Seven factors common to children who cope well under adversity and avoid problems like depression, PTSD, and delinquency will be discussed, along with strategies to change the social and physical environments that surround them.