Contents

Resources

Promoting Resilience & Strengthening Environments

A comprehensive approach to youth suicide prevention will ideally reflect a dual focus on bolstering protective factors and reducing risk factors across an array of contexts and settings. Furthermore, research on resilience lends justification to those practices that seek to promote change at both the individual and social environmental levels.22

The concept of resilience reflects three overlapping domains:23

  • Resilience is the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to resources that sustain well-being
  • Resilience is the capacity of individuals’ physical and social ecologies to provide these resources
  • Resilience is the capacity of individuals and their families and communities to negotiate culturally meaningful ways for resources to be shared

Strengthening communities, enhancing social support, and improving the specific skills of youth and their parents are all part of an overall effort to promote the well-being of all youth. Several promising approaches to promoting resilience and strengthening social environments are described in this section.