Resiliency, 2nd Edition

About the Editor
About the Contributors
September 11, 2001
Preface

Chapter 1: Human Behavior Theory: A Resilience Orientation
Roberta R. Greene

Chapter 2: Resilience: Basic Assumptions and Terms
Roberta R. Greene and Ann P. Conrad

Chapter 3: Resilience: A Social Construction
Roberta R. Greene and Nancy C. Livingston

Chapter 4: Resilience Research: Methodological Square Pegs and Theoretical Black Holes
William H. Barton

Chapter 5: Resilience and Physical Health
Joyce Grahl Riley

Chapter 6: Resilience and Mental Health: A Shift in Perspective
Robert Blundo

Chapter 7: Surviving Violence and Trauma: Resilience in Action at the Micro Level
Nancy J. Rothenberg

Chapter 8: Resilience and Violence at the Macrolevel
Irene Queiro-Tajalli and Craig Campbell

Chapter 9: Raising Children in an Oppressive Environment: Voices of Resilient Adults
Roberta R. Greene, Norma J. Taylor, Margaret Evans, and Linda Anderson Smith

Chapter 10: Toward a Resilience-based Model of School Social Work: A Turnaround Mentor
Gerald T. Powers

Chapter 11: Educational Resilience
Jean E. Brooks

Chapter 12: Listening to Girls: A Study in Resilience
Marie L. Watkins

Chapter 13: Promoting Resilience among Returning Veterans
Robert Blundo, Roberta R. Greene, and Joyce Grahl Riley

Chapter 14: Resilience and the Older Adult
Judith S. Lewis and Evelyn B. Harrell

Chapter 15: Applying a Risk and Resilience Perspective to People with Intellectual Disabilities
Nancy P. Kropf and Roberta R. Greene

Chapter 16: Resilience and Social Work Policy
Carol Tully

Index

Roberta R. Greene, PhD, MSW, is a chair in gerontology at the School of Social Work, University of Texas at Austin, and a clinical social worker with a PhD in human development. She has worked for NASW as a staff member and was instrumental in passing the 1987 Nursing Home Reform Act. She has also worked for the Council on Social Work Education as a curriculum development specialist.

Dr. Greene has written a classic text used in schools of social work around the country: Human Behavior and Social Work Practice, now in its third edition. That text is complemented by Human Behavior Theory: A Diversity Framework, which is in its second edition. Dr. Greene is also known for her expertise on Erik Erikson and has written a chapter for the Comprehensive Handbook of Social Work and Social Welfare. Her article on resilience appears in the Encyclopedia of Social Work.

The author of 12 books and numerous research articles, Dr. Greene is currently continuing her scholarship through filmmaking and Web site design. In addition, she serves on a number of editorial review boards and was a recipient of the 2004 NASW Pioneer Award and the AGE-SW 2005 Career Achievement Award.

William H. Barton, PhD, professor, School of Social Work, Indiana University– Purdue University, Indianapolis. Dr. Barton has taught courses in juvenile justice policy, program evaluation research methods, leadership practice, and the philosophy of science. His research interests include juvenile justice, delinquency prevention, youth development, and community collaboration. For more than 30 years, he has conducted evaluations of juvenile justice programs and policies throughout the United States. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, coauthored two books, and been a frequent presenter at local, state, and national conferences.

Robert Blundo, PhD, MSW, LCSW, professor, School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Dr. Blundo is founder and participant in the Strengths Collaborative established for training, practice and research on strengths- and resiliency-based models of practice. He teaches strengths-based courses and conducts training in military social work, combat stress, child protective services, mental health, and positive psychology.

Jean E. Brooks, PhD, MSW, assistant professor, coordinator, bachelor of social work program, Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi. Dr. Brooks has contributed to the development of the School of Social Work at Jackson State University and to the initiation of its programs—the bachelor of social work program, the master of social work program, and the PhD program in social work. She has provided leadership in social work accreditation for both the BSW and MSW programs. Her research interests include positive youth development and educational resilience.

Craig Campbell, MSW, student services coordinator, School of Social Work, Indiana University. Mr. Campbell worked in the area of youth services for severa years before joining the School of Social Work. His areas of interest include macro practice, resiliency, and online teaching.

Ann P. Conrad, DSW, MSW, L-ICSW, National Catholic School of Social Service, Catholic University of America. Dr. Conrad has served on the faculty in many roles including dean of the school, chair of the master of social work program, director of admissions, and the assistant to the director of field instruction.

Margaret Evans, ACSW, program director, Northwestern Technical College, Rock Spring, Georgia. Ms. Evans has had more than 20 years of professional experience in higher education as well as serving as the director of state NASW chapters.

Evelyn B. Harrell, LCSW-BA CS, LA C, associate professor, director, substance abuse counseling program, Southern University at New Orleans. Ms. Harrell’s teaching experiences include graduate courses on theories of human behavior, direct practice with individuals, cross-cultural issues in practice, social work history, and policy. She has taught an extensive number of undergraduate courses in the field of addiction.

Nancy P. Kropf, PhD, professor and director, School of Social Work, Georgia State University. Dr. Kropf’s area of research and scholarship is late-life caregiving relationships, with the focus on older adults as care providers. Dr. Kropf has over 60 peer reviewed articles and book chapters in the social work and gerontology literature and is editor or author of seven books.

Judith S. Lewis, PhD, MSW, LCSW-BA CS, associate professor, director, student affairs, Tulane School of Social Work, Tulane University. Dr. Lewis received her PhD in social work from the University of Maryland in 1993 and MSW from Syracuse University in 1965. She is director of student affairs at Tulane School of Social Work and was director of field education there for the past 13 years. She was project director and principal investigator of the Leanne Knot Violence Prevention Project (1999–2003), a four-year campus education and training project funded by the U.S. Department of Justice in consortium with Southern University of New Orleans and the University of New Orleans. Her publications reflect her research interests in resilience in older adults, advocacy and organizing, natural helping networks, and social work field education as it relates to cultural diversity learning. She is a licensed clinician in the state of Louisiana and has provided pro bono service in the community as a group work specialist.

Nancy C. Livingston, MSSW, Department of Psychiatry (ret.), Southwestern Medical School, University of Texas, Dallas. Ms. Livingston provided employee assistance counseling to staff, researchers, and faculty.

Gerald T. Powers , PhD, professor emeritus, School of Social Work, Indiana University. Dr. Powers taught human behavior content at the baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral levels for more than 30 years.

Irene Queiro-Tajalli, PhD, professor and interim executive director of labor studies, School of Social Work, Indiana University. Dr. Queiro-Tajalli’s most recent presentations and writings focus on technology; older adults in the diaspora; community organizing and resilience; globalization; women, with a focus on Latino and Muslim women; Muslims post-September 11, 2001; cultural competency; labor studies and social work; and Latin America.

Joyce Grahl Riley, MA, BSN, associate director, health administration and policy program, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Ms. Riley previously worked with the Baltimore City Health Department as a senior community nurse.

Nancy J. Rothenberg , PhD, MSW, associate professor, School of Social Work, University of Georgia. Dr. Rothenberg (Williams) brings over 30 years of practice experience as a clinician dealing with trauma and families. Her scholarship has spanned the areas of resiliency, spirituality, and the role of experiential learning and community engagement in social work education with a current emphasis on restorative justice and international social work. She is the 2010 recipient of the UGA Scholarship of Engagement Award for her leadership in research, teaching, and service in the creation of sustained service-learning projects both domestically and internationally.

Linda Anderson Smith, DSW, professor, School of Social Work, Springfield College. As a product of a South Bronx neighborhood, Dr. Smith learned many firsthand lessons about resiliency. She has over 30 years of mental health and family practice with African American and Latino families in urban settings. Her research and practice and teaching interests are evidenced-based practice in mental health and substance abuse, cultural competence, and social policy.

Norma J. Taylor, PhD, MSW, born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Taylor began her academic pursuits concentrating on natural science and she admits that social science was nowhere on her radar screen. She had a change of heart after serving for two years in Morocco as a Peace Corps Volunteer. At that point, her primary focus became service to others. After completing her MSW, she spent several years working with children in residential care in New York and then as faculty at a graduate school of social work in Knoxville, Tennessee. Being in an academic setting sparked a desire for further study, so she returned to Massachusetts and completed her doctorate in social policy. Dr. Taylor worked for over 13 years in the national office of the National Association of Social Workers performing a variety of tasks including standards development, conference planning, and grants management. Child Welfare, specifically in the area of training, was her next focal point. As training coordinator, Dr. Taylor was able to enhance the knowledge and skill development of social work staff at Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) and affiliate agencies in Washington, DC. Ordained as an Interfaith Ministry in 2003 at New Seminary in New York City, Dr. Taylor works with the counseling ministry in her church in Washington, DC. She is a certified life coach and has a private practice in the District of Columbia.

Carol T. Tully, PhD, LCSW, professor emerita, University of Louisville. Dr. Tully lives in New Orleans, where she remains active as a mental health volunteer with the American Red Cross.

Marie L. Watkins, PhD, MSW, professor, Department of Social Work; director, Center for Service Learning; director, Minor in Community Youth Development; Nazareth College, Rochester, New York. Dr. Watkins has over 30 years of youth development experience as a youth worker, a group worker, as an agency administrator, and as a youth development advocate. In 1969, she began her youth work career with the Department of Parks and Recreation for the city of Niagara Falls, New York. For over 25 years, Dr. Watkins was a full-time professional youth worker in Boys and Girls Clubs in Niagara Falls, Syracuse, Albany, and in Indianapolis, Indiana. She continues her involvement and passion for youth development service for youth in her role as a workshop presenter, as a consultant, and an author. She has received local, regional, and national recognition for her youth development expertise and commitment. Since 2001, Dr. Watkins has served as Nazareth College’s Director for the Center of Service Learning. In 2005, she coauthored the book Service-Learning: From Community to Classroom to Career: (Jist Works) with Linda Braun. In addition to her scholarship, Dr. Watkins consults with higher education institutions and agencies related to the process of institutionalizing service learning on college campuses, K–12 school settings, and nonprofit organizations. Dr. Watkins’s primary practice expertise is in the areas of strengthening organizational capacity within youth development agencies, building youth–adult partnerships with youth who reside in urban settings, the creation of culturally competent youth services with a special emphasis on gender equity, and establishing and sustaining service-learning partnerships between institutions of higher education and community-based agencies. Dr. Watkins earned a MSW, a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, and a PhD in child and family studies from Syracuse University, New York.

Michael Wright, PhD, MSW, associate professor, Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN. Dr. Wright leads the research sequence in the social work program, and chairs its committee charged with curriculum renewal and program assessment. A former MSW program director, he has taught a diverse population of students at both the baccalaureate and master degree levels. Over the past year, Dr. Wright has been working on the Lifespan Project, an initiative to facilitate campus–community collaboration on behavioral health. His other research interests include trauma and resilience, complex adaptive systems, and entrepreneurship. Wright has also been a macro practice consultant more than 12 years for public and private entities seeking capacity development, social research, leadership training, and educational media creation.

Key aspects of resiliency theory and research are synthesized in this volume, and these concepts are then applied to social work practice. The text is intended to provide an integrated foundation framework that addresses human behavior in the social environment, policy, research, social work practice, ethics and values, diversity, and social and economic justice. The contributors are particularly concerned with understanding factors that contribute to people being at risk and learning successful means to redress these difficulties.

Although social workers have long sought a framework that focuses on client strength, the profession has yet to adopt a multisystemic, empirically based theory that can be applied in assessment and intervention across people’s life course. Resiliency theory is such an emerging paradigm.

Social work practice demands the ability to understand, critique, and apply a number of human behavior theories. Resiliency theory is best understood in conjunction with ecological and systems thinking that characterizes the profession’s person-in-environment approach. To that end, these chapters afford students and practitioners a new, forward-thinking vocabulary and body of knowledge and skills. It is hoped that this will build on social work tradition and provide a context and a belief system that underscores the heroic nature of human endurance and fortitude.

When the first edition of the book was written, following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, it was not uncommon to hear people say, “The world has changed forever.” I know I was shocked by the realization that what my colleagues and I had written for this book took on a startling reality. This remains true a decade later as we added chapters on resilience among returning veterans and schools. When I began creating this book more than a decade ago, I had no idea of the journey I had undertaken. As the process of learning about resiliency unfolded, I learned that it meant different things to different people. A review of the literature revealed that there were many quantitative studies using large-scale databases that documented the epidemiological nature of risk and resilience. Qualitative studies revealed how people were able to survive unthinkable risks and become successful adults. The review also uncovered the work of many clinicians who believed that a resiliency approach had transformed their own mental health practice. Also, I was not surprised to find resiliency discussed in the popular media including newspapers, magazines, and self-help books. I experienced powerful learning about resiliency during the 35 interviews conducted for the first edition. Over a hundred more were conducted for this second edition. The stories of survivors and professionals gave credence to the idea that people can be successful despite serious negative life events. Their courageous stories also underscored that although we must acknowledge our clients’ troubles and pain, we as social workers cannot afford to overlook their resources and potential. I could never imagine that the courageous stories I heard during these interviews would be magnified to the degree they have been by the heroic stories following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. The heroism of “everyday people” and all professionals at the scene document the stuff of human resiliency.