Symposium Summary:

Resilience is a much-desired attribute, process and outcome both in contemporary scientific scholarship and in popular culture. However, most of resilience interventions and programs are developed by Western researchers and practitioners.

Culture plays a critical role in responding to stress and adversity. In an ethno-culturally diverse, urbanized, polarized and increasingly anxious world, incorporating cultural context in programs could not only equip vulnerable individuals to cope better but also, by tapping into cultural resourcefulness, could enable individuals and communities to thrive. Integrating concepts and skills from positive psychology, cognitive behaviour therapy and mindfulness Strengths-Based Resilience program was created, piloted, and now disseminated cross-culturally. This symposium presents an overview of the program and its cross-cultural adaptations.

The program was created and piloted in marginalized educational and clinical settings of the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, since 2010.  Several iterations of the program and extensive consultation after each iteration with educators and healthcare professionals from diverse cultural backgrounds have enhanced its cultural responsiveness. For example, while building and strengthening an autonomous self to encounter stressors and adversities is much desired in Western Countries, an interdependent self which deals with setbacks by marshalling collective resilience (e.g., of family, clan, group, community) is encouraged by Western cultural norms. Western cultural norms also support individual choice, freedom, having an internal sense of control, and being relatively carefree of approval-seeking of others, especially family and these attributes are considered critical for resilience. However, our consultations and focus groups and feedback about the cultural relevance of the program revealed that the key to resilience in predominantly immigrant and Non-Western communities is the ability to adjust oneself to the ebb and flow of social context is key to resilience. Furthermore, while resilience was about asserting control and assuming personal responsibility among students from Western and Euro-centric families, resilience rested on understanding the context and background of the adversity and perceiving it as the result of multiple interrelated and interdependent factors which are changeable through collective efforts, among interdependent and collectivistic families.

Cultural responsiveness has been a key feature in attracting the attention of cross-cultural partners of SBR. The program team has been invited to train educators and clinicians in the struggling neighbourhood of Karachi Pakistan (2014), traumatized educators in Kyiv, Ukraine (2014), Syrian refugees in Lebanon (2019), traumatized Muslim Community in New Zealand following the mass shooting in two mosques in Christchurch (2019), teachers and youth workers in working in disadvantaged communities in Sri Lanka (2022) and transgender community, Lahore (2022). Currently, through a large grant, the program is being adapted and implemented in schools and community settings in Guyana. In part, this project also aims to enhance mental health literacy in an effort to decrease and prevent the suicide rate, which has been consistently ranked as one of the highest in the world.

Symposium Presentation 1: Strengths-based Resilience Program: Why a Cross-cultural Approach to Resilience

Presenter: Jane Gillham

The first presentation sets the context of the symposium by highlighting the negativity bias, that is, our minds perceive negative information as more potent and important compared to positive information. This bias is also evident in resilience interventions and programs which mostly focus on mitigating risks, reducing vulnerabilities and ameliorating stressors. Without dismissing, ignoring or minimizing the impact of negatives, resilience interventions should pay equal attention and effort to assess and enhancing negatives. The presentation underscores that resilience is a developmental and ongoing process which is also a complex interplay of genetic, psychological, social and cultural factors that are domain- and culture-specific. The presentation concludes with specific illustrations of how domain- and cultural-specific elements have been carefully considered in creating a Strengths-Based Resilience Program.

Symposium Presentation 2: Strengths-Based Resilience Program: Developing Culturally Contextualized Training 

Presenter: Afroze Anjum

The SBR program was initially designed and validated in schools in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Toronto area is an excellent location for developing a culturally contextualized program. Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is one of the most multicultural and multilingual school systems in the world, serving more than 246,000 students in 595 schools. There are over 120 languages spoken by TDSB students and families. The presentation describes the process of engaging educators and mental health professionals from diverse cultural backgrounds in offering feedback and specific suggestions to make the program inclusive and culturally responsive. These suggestions are included in each module under the section called Cultural and Learning Fit. This presentation will share illustrations and insights from this section and how these make the program culturally contextualized in many countries. 

Symposium Presentation 3: Strengths-Based Resilience Program: Salient Findings from eight studies 

Presenter: Tayyab Rashid

The SBR program has been validated by eight studies conducted at several schools, an outpatient adolescent unit of a local hospital, the counselling center of a university and most recently, at a nursing home in New Zealand. Facilitated by trained professionals, the outcome measures of the program across settings have shown its effectiveness in reducing stress and enhancing well-being. Furthermore, quantitative and qualitative feedback, elicited anonymously from participants as well as from facilitators, shows the benefits of a strengths-based resilience approach. This presentation shares the salient findings of these eight studies and shares insights about culturally responsive assessment and evaluation approaches.

Symposium Presentation 4: SBR Adaptations: Sri Lanka and Guyana

Presenter: Murtaza Esufally, Anushka Fernando Goonetilleke and Nabil Ali

The cultural and learning fit of the Strengths-based Resilience Program has been a key factor in attracting the attention of cross-cultural partners. The program team has been invited to train educators and clinicians in the struggling neighbourhood of Karachi, Pakistan (2014), traumatized educators in Kyiv, Ukraine (2014), Syrian refugees in Lebanon (2019), Muslim Community in New Zealand following the mass shooting in two mosques in Christchurch (2019), teachers and youth workers in working in orphanages in Sri Lanka (2022) and transgender community, Lahore (2022). Currently, through a large grant, the program is being adopted and implemented in schools and community settings in Guyana, which has the third highest rate of suicide (per 100 k).  This presentation features SBR’s adaptation in Sri Lanka. Murtaza Esufally, from Learn4Life Lanka, an NGO working with disadvantaged youth, will present SBR’s Sri Lankan adaptation.  Nabil Ali, Senior Director of Programs, International Development Relief Fund, which is running the SBR program in Guyana, will present SBR implementation in Guyanese Schools and health settings. This five-year project (2022-27) will target to benefit 67,500 young people and adults in educational and health settings. Both presentations will include video highlights of SRB adaptations in Sri Lanka and Guyana.