Register now for the first ASI Online Interactive Presentation: “Promoting and sustaining child and adolescent mental health: The role of community resilience and how we foster it” with Linda Liebenberg, March 24, 2:30-3:00!

 

Increasingly, research is demonstrating the critical importance of context in child and youth outcomes, where changes in environment account for greater amounts of psychosocial outcomes, than changes in individuals themselves. Consequently, if we want to ensure better mental health and social outcomes for our children, we need to expand our attention from person and family focused interventions to community focused interventions. Similarly, we need to shift our attention from a focus on the resilience of the individual, to a focus on community resilience and related family resilience. Importantly, this perspective does not negate formal service provision targeted at individuals. Rather, this approach augments the capacity of such services, deepens the impact of their interventions, and extends the longevity of related outcomes. A focus on the development of community resilience enhances supports for children, their families and of course, their communities, buffering against the stressors and challenges that negatively impact the healthy development of children and youth. This skill development workshop will draw on a comprehensive review of community resilience development to share what we know about 1) the role of community resilience in supporting children and families; and 2) effective ways of strengthening the social fabric and related support resources of our communities to build capacity for upstream development in mental health promotion and support.

 

Linda Liebenberg, PhD., is a researcher and evaluator with a core interest in children and youth with complex needs, and the communities they live in. Her work explores the promotion of positive youth development and mental health through development of community resilience, focusing often on initiatives driven by organizations and service providers. As a key component of this work, Linda reflects critically on how best to conduct research and evaluations with children and their communities, including participatory action research using image-based methods; sophisticated longitudinal quantitative designs; and the design of measurement instruments used with children and youth across multiple cultures. Linda has presented internationally and published extensively on these topics of research and youth.

 

Fee:   Individual: $50 per workshop; $200 for complete series
          Team* (using same computer): $250 for complete series

*As there will be an interactive component to the presentations there will be limitations if sharing a computer.