Dr. Jackie Parke joins Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak to discuss the role of resilience in lives with high-risk factors. Jackie is a licensed psychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Vanguard University in Southern California who focuses on resilience-building among youth, evidence-based treatment for mental health disorders, and refugee mental health. Together they examine risk factors and protective factors that influence a person’s vulnerability, as well as how resilience plays a role in their future.

Key Points

Risk factors include individual, family, and social or community characteristics that are associated with increased vulnerability in a person’s life.

Researchers think that the total number of risk factors a child experiences may weigh more heavily on vulnerability than the particular type of risk factors they experience.

Protective factors include the individual, family, and social or community characteristics that are associated with positive adaptation.

Resources

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Transcript

Dave: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 179, The Role of Resilience when Facing Adversity: Part 1.

Production Credits: [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave: [00:00:31] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: [00:00:36] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: [00:00:39] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, I don’t know how often we say the word resilience, but certainly, that word comes up for me just about every time we record an episode of thinking about not only the resilience that all of us need in this work against human trafficking. But of course, the resilience most importantly of the people who are affected by this. And I’m really thrilled to welcome our guest today. She’s a pal of ours at Vanguard University and her name is Jackie Parke. Dr. Jackie Parke is a licensed psychologist who serves children, adolescents, college-age young adults, and their families. She’s currently an assistant professor of psychology at Vanguard University of Southern California. Her clinical and research areas of focus include resilience building among youth, evidence-based treatment for mental health disorders, and refugee mental health. And I know she’s going to really be helpful to us Sandie on some more perspective on this. Jackie, we’re so glad to welcome you to the show.

Jackie: [00:01:45] I’m so excited to be here. Thank you both for having me.

Sandie: [00:01:48] Well Jackie, when I first met you, you opened a door for me when I’m working particularly with survivors and aftercare for human trafficking but also with a lot of my kids who have come out of some kind of domestic violence situation because one of the things I’ve seen is trauma-informed care is very helpful. But why are some of my kids doing really well and others not? And it was like you showed me the next step. So that’s why I was so excited to have you bring that to our listeners, so welcome to our show. And where we’re going to start off with let’s just talk about the definition of resilience. \.

Jackie: [00:02:35] So there are different definitions of resilience in the literature. So, researchers kind of debate, and I’ve seen you know over the past few decades this debate happening, but there’s one definition that I lean toward in particular because it has more of a positive emphasis. And I saw this in the literature by Grotberg in 1995, “Resilience is the human capacity to face, overcome, and be strengthened by or even transformed by the adversities of life.”.

Sandie: [00:03:12] Wow. So, the “transformed by adversities of life” that caught me by surprise.

Jackie: [00:03:19] Me too, and that’s the piece that I really appreciate about this definition is that it’s saying yes people have adverse experiences that they face, that they can overcome but perhaps there’s even a pathway there where by way of the adversities they have faced, people can actually be transformed by those experiences.

Sandie: [00:03:44] So the idea that resiliency is like a little rubber ball that when you squeeze it regains its shape is really different in the context of this definition. And I think for a lot of us in this field and not really thinking through about resiliency we’ve sort of had this okay either it’s going to regain its shape or it’s not.

Jackie: [00:04:10] I think that’s what most people would imagine when they consider resilience you know can this person get back to who they used to be. You know when I talk with clients sometimes in therapy when they’ve been through adverse experiences sometimes they’re thinking of OK I need to get back to who I used to be, my old normal, my old self. But a hopeful, futuristic post-traumatic growth view of this would say well actually you’ll find a new normal and is it even the case that you might emerge from these really difficult experiences with new strength and new capacities and a new degree of transformation that wasn’t there before.

Sandie: [00:04:53] And looking at it from my perspective, I’m thinking I don’t want her to go back to her old normal because that’s why she was so vulnerable and so I want her to have a new strength. So, tell us how that works especially from a child perspective, you’ve done a lot of work with adolescents.

Sandie: [00:05:13] Well first off, I think thinking about an example that you just gave of not wanting someone to go back to the vulnerable self that they were experiencing. I think what happens is that people have to develop a capacity to dream and to hope of a new, better future. And so, it takes them, and it takes the people around them coming together to have a creative vision for who they can be. You know, loving the person for who they are now, but creating that new hope for future and vision of who they can become. So, part of this in terms of child psychology, child psychologist talks about developmental pathways. And this is basically a term for just the trajectory of a person’s life over time. And it’s complex, is not linear, it’s not formulaic but it’s basically this mysterious combination of what are the risk factors a person has experienced and with their liv...