FUNDAMENTALS
The Resilience Revolution is underpinned by 7 ‘fundamentals’. They are the principles that guide all our work, collaboration and partnerships:
Co-production
Within the Resilience Revolution, we think that co-production is working together towards a shared goal.
Co-production is an opportunity for young people, young professionals, senior professionals, parents and carers, teachers and community members to be able to work together, alongside one another, to make improvements to a community, a service or as in our case, a whole town.
It provides the chance for every person involved to have their voice heard and be an active part of change - with all experiences and expertise equally valued. For example, pupils in schools working alongside senior leaders and teachers to make their school community more resilient by leading on projects around safe spaces and peer mentoring. Or parents and carers working alongside practitioners to create an adapted version of the resilience framework for families or groups.
Read the Young People’s Executive Group (YPEG) top ten tips on co-production here.
Whole System Change
We seek to transform systems to work with young people, not against them.
Systems transformation is essential for us to achieve our mission with the Resilience Revolution; re-modelling our systems so young people get the right support, at the right time and in the right place.
Working in collaboration is key to a whole systems approach, and we seek to mobilise this through developing strong relationships with people across the system as well as establishing this shared set of principles. This means embedding the Resilient Therapy approach within and across a range of systems including education, health, social care, public services, community sectors and families themselves.
Social Justice
The Resilient Therapy approach is rooted in social justice thinking which means it not only recognises the impact of inequalities on people’s lives, but supports people to make resilient moves for themselves and others to address these inequalities. This distinction between taking an individual approach and a systems one is essential to supporting children’s wellbeing. The connection between increased social deprivation and a family’s involvement with services is well documented, including the terrible impact of poverty on children’s mental health and wellbeing.
Through applying what we call an ‘inequalities imagination’, which means there is an understanding of how inequalities impact on people’s lives, action is taken alongside the community to level out the playing field. In this way we address individual challenges and tackle the wider context of adversity that the town’s children and young people face. This is captured within our working definition of resilience which is to “beat the odds whilst also change the odds”.
Asset Based
Too much of what we’ve done with people in the past has focused on negatives, working out what is going wrong and how to fix it. We need to nurture our assets - including young people, parents, carers, workers, leaders, providers - and use their skills to build lasting change.
Put simply, the Resilience Revolution concentrates on the inherent strengths of young people, families, groups and organisations to build their resilience, resolve their problems and deliver their own solutions.
One of the key tools we are using in the Resilience Revolution is the Resilience Framework - a visual representation of the evidence and research base that identifies 42 actions or steps (known as ‘Resilient Moves’) that people and communities can take to build their resilience. It helps us recognise what is already working well, and identify steps that can help us bounce forward.
We have already got stacks of assets within the Resilience Revolution including:
• Young people that can lead us to success
• Parents and carers commitment to shape change
• Innovative, committed and passionate leaders
• A town that is ripe for change
• The support of leading experts worldwide
This is only the start, our list of assets is growing every day.
One Approach One Language
The mission is to embed the approaches of Resilient Therapy throughout the services and organisations within which young people and parents and carers access support. A common approach which will allow the development of a common language. Imagine a world where professionals, young people, parents and carers can understand each other's language and communicate as equals.
Research & Evaluation
The Resilience Revolution is based on an extensive research and evidence base collated by Boingboing and the Centre of Resilience for Social Justice at the University of Brighton. We are drawing on this evidence base to ‘test and learn’ new ways of working, meaning the Resilience Revolution has a very ‘iterative’ (or learning) culture. Check out the 'test and learn’ page for details of our research approach, and any publications we are ready to share.
Brave & Innovative
Doing the same old things but expecting different results was never an option for us. We want everything to be based on evidence or theory, but also to be innovative, creative, fun and have the backing and drive of our young people and partners. You will find a range of examples across this website of how different organisations or services have been brave and tried out new ways of working. We hope that this, combined with the research and evidence we are collecting, will provide a lasting legacy from the original HeadStart investment.