Risk, Resiliency, & Protective Factors

(4-30-08)

Risk, At Risk, Children Placed At Risk

• Factors associated with worse than expected developmental outcomes
• Michael Rutter
  • low socioeconomic status
  • larger families
  • lower intelligence
  • children being in care
• More complex views of risk
  • subject characteristics
    • intelligence
    • family history of maladjustment
  • environmental characteristics
    • poverty
    • urban setting
    • discrimination, crime, overcrowding anomie
    • maltreatment
    • neglect
    • abuse
  • subject-environment interactions
    • temperament/child rearing
    • attachment

Resiliency

• Why do some children turn out better than expected?
  • Child focused protective factors
    • Intelligence
    • “Easy temperament”
    • Self-Esteem ?
  • Environmental factors

Protective Factors

• Broad concept: can be subject, environmental, or interactive
  • Positive Role Models
  • Positive Peer Influences
  • Well functioning families
  • Figuring out casual relationships

Interaction

• Children influence, as well as are influenced, by their environments
• Risk and protective factors are often interactive: their joint effects are seldom simply additive or linear.
• 2 risk factors are usually worse than 1, but often are more then “twice” as bad as 1.
• Particular combinations of risk factors are often especially destructive (or more benign):
  • “difficult temperament” + inconsistent parenting is an especially unfortunate combination