ABOUT US
The Resilience Revolution is a whole town approach to addressing the mental health needs of children and young people in Blackpool. We are doing this by building a social movement; one that both supports individuals to overcome challenges and develop their resilience AND through tackling structural inequalities that impact on people’s lives.
We call this “beating the odds whilst also changing the odds”.
The catalyst for the Resilience Revolution has been funding from the National Lottery Community Fund Headstart programme. This is a national funding programme that is supporting six areas across the country; Blackpool, Kernow, Hull Kent, Newham and Wolverhampton. Through this 6 year investment (which started in August 2016), Blackpool have been able to adopt a ‘test and learn’ approach to try out different ways to reduce mental ill health and build resilience.
Blackpool Council are the lead organisation and host for the funding, and are working with a range of partners and collaborators to embed a whole town approach.
The Resilience Revolution is based on the original concept of ‘Resilient Therapy’ and its associated inequalities-related research developed by Professor Angie Hart and collaborators. This work and research has been conducted through Boingboing and the Centre of Resilience for Social Justice at the University of Brighton who are core partners in the Resilience Revolution.
Resilience Revolution Aims
The Resilience Revolution aims to achieve a sustainable, whole-system change to the town of Blackpool, transforming systems to give people the right support at the right time and in the right place.
Implementing and developing resilience approaches – Resilient Therapy, the Academic Resilience Approach and Friend for Life – designed by Professor Angie Hart and collaborators.
The Resilience Revolution is:
providing purposeful opportunities for any member of the community, particularly those affected by disadvantage, to co-lead a grass roots social movement
mobilising the town towards supporting every young person’s resilience
providing a resilience-promoting environment for all 10-16 year olds, offering programmes to every young person in year five by embedding the Academic Resilience Approach, which is a whole-school approach, in Blackpool’s schools
providing a community development approach and young people’s hub to embed a resilience approach
improving schools’ pastoral care by developing the current workforce through training, supervision and communities of practice to help embed Resilient Therapy into everyday practice
giving tailored support for three priority target groups:
Our Children (looked-after children) – support includes personal resilience-building, Friend for Life and a digital mentoring community
young people who self-harm – support includes systems remodelling, daily group resilience sessions in hospitals, and development of PSHE curricula
young people in transition from primary to secondary school – support includes team support from Resilience Coaches across Years 6 and 7.