Resilience

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Resilience

• Mental Health Week 2008
• Building Resilience Appreciate the Little Things
  in Life

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Outline

• Mental Health Week 2008
• What is resilience?
• Individual resilience
• Community resilience
• Gratitude and resilience
• Where to from here?

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What is the Mental Health Association NSW?

• The Mental Health Association NSW (MHA) is a
  non-government organisation and registered
  charity funded by NSW Health.
• www.mentalhealth.asn.au
• Vision A society that values, promotes and
  protects mental health and wellbeing for its
  citizens.
• Goals
• Promote good practice in mental health
• Increase community awareness of mental illness
  and promote mental health
• Inform and support people to access appropriate
  mental health interventions
• Continually improve the viability, capacity and
  operation of the Association.

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What is Mental Health Week?

• Mental Health Week (MHW) is part of a national
  mental health promotion campaign held in early
  October each year.
• MHA is the state coordinating body for MHW in NSW
  
• In 2008 MHW is from Sun October 5th to Sat
  October 11th
• The aim of MHW is to promote social and emotional
  wellbeing to the population in NSW by
• encouraging people to maximise their health
  potential,
• enhancing the coping capacity of communities,
  families, and individuals, and
• increasing mental health literacy

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Building Resilience 2008-2010

• MHW 2008 is year 1 in the MHA 3 year mental
  health promotion Building Resilience campaign
• 2008 focus is Appreciate the little things in
  life
• This looks at the value of optimism and positive
  thinking through appreciating the little things
  in life

By focusing on the positives in life our
emotional resilience is strengthened, stress
reduced and improved mental well-being MHW Fact
Sheet available at www.mentalhealth.asn.au
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What is Resilience to You?

• Brainstorm ideas about what resilience means to
  you
• It could mean
• The ability to bounce back or recover from
  stressful situations
• The ability to take on challenges, and find
  meaning in them
• Being able to respond positively to difficult
  situations
• Learning and growing through various experiences
  in life
• Rising above adversities
• Transforming unfavourable situations into wisdom,
  insight and compassion
• To ensure stress
• To be able to cope when things look bleak
• Being able to tap into hope
• Being able to forgive

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What is Resilience?

• Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a
  stressful experience, adapting to this situation
  without lasting consequences.
• Building resilience doesnt
  stop bad things happening
  but can limit
  their impact
  on our lives

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Why are Some People More Resilient than Others?

• Factors that influence how a person reacts to a
  stressful or challenging experience
• Individual health and wellbeing
• Individual factors
• Life history and experience
• Social and community support

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Resilience and mental illness

• Building resilience can decrease the chance of
  developing mental illness
• Offsets risk factors for mental illnesses like
  lack of social support or bullying
• Examples of resilience

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What Promotes Your Resilience?

• Now that you know what resilience is and how it
  relates to aspects of your life, lets recap by
  brainstorming ideas about what promotes or
  improves your resilience

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What Promotes Your Resilience?

• Positive relationships with friends, family,
  colleagues or community members
• Communication skills
• Emotional, intellectual and/or creative
  development
• Healthy self esteem
• Good physical and mental health
• Planning and goal setting
• Problem solving ability
• Sense of humour
• Sense of mastery
• Being able to relax, take time out

Adapted with permission from Response Ability
Promoting Resilience and Wellbeing
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What Drains Your Resilience?

• Unsupportive environments
• Lack of connectedness to others
• Communities that do reach out to their members
• Not caring for yourself physically and
  emotionally
• Lack of sense of mastery or control
• Focusing on the negative
• Lack of humour

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Tips to Build Individual Resilience
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What is a Resilient Community?

• A resilient community is defined as a community
  that takes intentional action to enhance the
  personal and collective capacity of its citizens
  and institutions to respond to, and influence the
  course of social and economic change
• Centre for Community Enterprise in British
  Columbia, The Community Resilience Manual

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Resilience Factors for Community
Adapted with permission from Murray Lloyd (2008)
and Paton, Johnston, Smith Millar (2001)
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Community Resilience

• Taking the ideas that you have generated in the
  previous exercise, think of ways that you may be
  able to build resilience at a community level

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How to Build Community Resilience

• Have community cohesion
• Build stronger families within the community
• Develop cultural competency
• Build safe and healthy environments
• Encourage healthy lifestyles
• Provide social and support groups for members of
  the community

Reproduced with permission from LIFE Resources,
Resources can be downloaded from
livingisforeveryone.com.au
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Example of Building Community Resilience

• Building community resilience is a process
• E.g., 1 Early childhood
• Perry Pre-School 1962
• 21 years later
• 40 less crime and teenage pregnancies
• 7 of women had mental health problems compared
  to 40 in control group
• Benefits were substantial

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Example of a Community Program to Promote
Resilience

• E.g. 2 Northcott Place high rise units
• Inner Sydney city
• High levels of violent crime 1980s
• Community programs that focused on getting to
  know others and having activities of all members
  of the community
• Tenant by Tenant tenants take portraits of each
  other with the help of a professional
  photographer
• All tenants choose the favourites, which become
  part of an exhibition
• Lower levels of violent crimes within the past 2
  years (prior to 2004)

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Gratitude and Resilience

• Gratitude is a positive emotion, of feeling
  thankful for various things in our life
• Gratitude and resilience are connected
• Improves optimistic views of the world
• Enhances positive mood
• It helps us connect with others
• Creates bonds within community
• Inspires to reach out to others

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How to Appreciate the Little Things in Life

• Brainstorm ways on how you or your community can
  appreciate the little things in life
• These may include (but are not limited to)
• Keeping a gratitude journal
• Celebrating the little things
• Slowing down and savouring

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Where to From Here?

• Contact these people/organisations
• Mental Health Information Service
• 1300 794 991 for services in your area
• Mental Health Promotion Department
• [phone] or promoadmin_at_mentalhealth.asn.au

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Where to From Here?

• Websites
• Changing minds www.changingminds.org.au
• Mayo Clinic, Resilience Page www.mayoclinc.com/he
  alth/resilience/MH00078
• Road to Resilience, American Psychological
  Association www.apahelpcenter.org/featuredtopics/
  feature.php?id6ch1

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Where to From Here?

• Books
• Ann Deveson (2003) Resilience, Allen Unwin
  Sydney.
• Martin Seligman, (2002) Authentic Happiness,
  Simon Schuster New York.
• Tim Sharp, (2007) Happiness Handbook, Finch
  Publishing.
• Stephanie Dowrick, (2005) Choosing Happiness,
  Allen Unwin.
• Ingrid Poulson (2008), Rise, Pan
• MacMillan.