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Resilience and Well-Being

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Resilience & Well-Being

New science is helping us to understand resilience and how it helps us to process traumatic events in ways that minimize damage to their physical health, mental health, and relationships. Here we focus on the biological processes that undergird resilience, the types of environments and experiences that help children strengthen their resilience, and effective strategies for working with children and families in ways that promote and support resilience.

Featured Resources

Digital Dialogue
Building Community Capacity to Support Perinatal Mental Health Digital Dialogue

Building Community Capacity to Support Perinatal Mental Health

Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are among the most common complications that occur in pregnancy or in the first 12 months after delivery. Yet despite the long-reaching negative impacts on parent-child attachment, child development, and financial stability, perinatal mental health (PMH) disorders often remain underdiagnosed, untreated, or under-treated.


Module
HOPE Learning Module

HOPE (Interactive Learning Module)

This short learning module allows you to hear directly from Dr. Bob Sege about HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences). Learn, test your knowledge, and develop action plans.


ACF Video Series

ACF Video Series on Early Childhood Social Emotional Development and Mental Health and Caregiver Well-being

A series of short videos to spotlight the importance of robust social emotional development and mental health support strategies within programs serving young children and their families.


Complete List of Resources

Videos and Social Media

  • Coming SoonParent Self-Care Social Media Gallery
    These social media posts highlight the importance of self-care and connect to self-care resources.

Tools and Tip Sheets

  • NEWHOPE (Interactive Learning Module)
    This short learning module allows you to hear directly from Dr. Bob Sege about HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences). Learn, test your knowledge and develop action plans.

Digital Dialogue Recordings

  • NEWBuilding Community Capacity to Support Perinatal Mental Health
    Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are among the most common complications that occur in pregnancy or in the first 12 months after delivery. Yet despite the long-reaching negative impacts on parent-child attachment, child development, and financial stability, perinatal mental health (PMH) disorders often remain underdiagnosed, untreated, or under-treated.
  • The Science and Practice of Self-Regulation
    In this Digital Dialogue, we will be focusing on what the science tells us about resilience, healing, and self-regulation. Learn more about the brain's anatomy and practical tips for identifying restorative practices that work when your body is under stress.
  • Young Mamas in Foster Care: Setting the Stage for Success
    All teen parents need support in becoming a parent while successfully navigating their own journey into adulthood, but young parents in foster care face a unique set of circumstances. Join us for a discussion with young mamas from National Crittenton's IMPACT (Invincible Mamas Pushing Action & Change Together) network on the needs of young parents in foster care and how we can better support them.
  • Promoting Healthy Behaviors for Kinship Caregivers
    Kinship caregivers often prioritize their children’s needs before caring for their own, often delaying their own medical appointments and medication to purchase shoes for children, transportation, and food. Learn more about kinship caregiver health and an approach to working with kinship caregivers that emphasizes self-compassion and self-care. Created by a multi-disciplinary team of doctors and social workers, the Time for Me Toolkit helps peer navigators to support and provide psychoeducation to caregivers around six pillars of health management (Healthy Eating, Being Active, Healthy Sleep, Healthy Coping, Medical Adherence, and Self-Monitoring).
  • Laying the Groundwork: Paid Family Leave as a Prevention and Promotion Strategy
    New data shows that policies to provide universal concrete and economic supports to families can have a powerful impact on child abuse and neglect prevention and broader family well-being. This Digital Dialogue covered one such strategy—paid family and medical leave. It explored what research tells us about the impacts of these concrete supports and provided information about one state’s journey to a statewide policy.
  • Caring for Kinship Caregivers
    In 2018, 2.7 million children were being raised in a kinship care family without a parent present – either with grandparents, aunts/uncles, siblings, or close family friends. While kinship caregivers provide essential support to children, many frequently need support to carry out this added responsibility effectively.
  • Addressing the Systemic Inequities that Stand in the Way of Children’s Well-Being
    Poverty, race, culture, or zip code should not predetermine a child’s school and life success. This digital dialogue explored the historical roots and current practices and policies that may lead to racial disparities (e.g., conflation of effects of poverty and neglect/abuse) within early childhood and child welfare.
  • All Children—All Families: Improving Practice For and With LGBTQ+ Youth and Families
    The Human Rights Campaign is working with hundreds of child welfare systems across the nation to build new and inclusive practices for LGBTQ+ youth and families. Learn more about the effective innovations being put into practice and tools you can use to shift practice in your own program and system.
  • Are the Words “Toxic Stress” Toxic? Re-thinking the Narrative About Early Life Stress
    In our concern about early adversity, are we selling short the capacity of individuals and communities to heal and grow?
  • Balancing ACEs with HOPE
    ACEs are not the only important childhood experiences that have lifelong health consequences.
  • Resilience: Building Community Awareness through Film Screenings
    Community organizations across the country have used the film Resilience to engage communities in child abuse and neglect prevention. Host a dialogue on Resilience in your community!
  • Using Science to Understand the Effects of Adversity and Build Resilience
    How new science is changing how we think about early childhood adversity and resilience.

External Resources

Partners

  • Parental Resilience
    Child Welfare Information Gateway
    This page provides a number of resources to help those who are looking to support parental resilience building.
  • Building Child Welfare Agency Capacity to Address Well-being
    Capacity Building Center for States
    The Center's resources promote protective factors, child and youth well-being, parent and caregiver well-being, parenting resources, and capacity building for programs and systems. Capacity building strategies include increasing the knowledge and skills of child welfare professionals to integrate service systems; restructure programs and services to better address social, emotional, and behavioral functioning; and support the well-being of children, youth, and families.
  • Well-Being and the Young Child
    FRIENDS National Resource Center
    This collection of guidance and resources focuses on the role that prevention programs can play in promoting the well-being of families with young children.
  • HOPE (Health Outcomes from Positive Experience) National Resource Center
    HOPE – Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences – represents a paradigm shift in how we see and talk about the positive experiences that support children's growth and development into healthy, resilient adults.
  • Center for the Developing Child
    Harvard University
    The Center’s Mission is to drive science-based innovation that achieves breakthrough outcomes for children facing adversity.