Resilience is the topic we are currently exploring and we do hope you can join us to enjoy a tasty breakfast, good company and some interesting discussion around this matter. We will be picking up a few points from Fiona Williams recent talk on ‘Building Resilience in Fragile People’.
To register, email gayle@businessinglasgow.net, or text or call me on 07740 467235.
Fiona Williams will be continuing with our theme for 2011/12 on Developing Resilience, and will be looking at resilience from a professional point of view.
Resilience is not an innate ability but a process that can be learned or an approach that can be developed. Fiona will be drawing from her own professional practice to offer some practical guidelines on how to build resilience in ourselves and in the people around us.
Presentation
BiG Event Report (Jack Quinn)
Fiona approached the topic by taking us back to our earliest days when we considered what was for many people the fragile lives that they experience often growing out of family situations or experiences in their childhood. She illustrated that even in the most fragile of families and situations; there is still the potential to bounce back which is a definition of resilience. Through her illustrated power point presentation she took us through the process and asked some of the more penetrating questions about what resilience is. For example what are the protective and risk factors and why are they important in understanding human development. Why are some people more successful than others at resisting and overcoming stressful episodes and how can we promote resilience among our friends and colleagues. She highlighted the fact that there are some people who do not succumb to adversity, for others they develop coping strategies that see them through the painful experience or episode. Also there are those who suffer severe trauma but they recover and prosper.
Interspersed through Fiona’s presentation were opportunities for each of us in our groups to discuss, from a more personal point of view, our response to the issues she raised. For example in the context of ‘The model of Developing Reliance’ by Grotberg, 1997, there are three givens:
1. ‘I have’ (external support and resources which promote resources)
2. ‘I can’ (social and emotional competences)
3. ‘I am’ (internal and personal attributes)
We then spent some time in groups focusing on these three aspects of models of resilience.
I have – is that which gives us a secure base, good friendships and good relationships with others
I can – is the skills and benefits of education or talents or interests that enable us
I am – having a positive value, having social competencies that enable us to cope within a social environment
I think for this writer the most significant things about Fiona’s talk to me were that we should not underestimate the fact that fragile people can be very resilient. Secondly we need to be aware of and take into account not just the situation that someone is going through currently which challenges their ability to be resilient but also see where they have come from in their background which may give insight into their ability to cope or not to cope.
Her talk also exposed the complex nature of how we respond to stressful situations and therefore the topic she brought to us deserves far greater consideration than we were able to give it in the short time we had at lunch time.
Thus confirms the view of the BiG Steering group that this topic needed several months of consideration and reflection to bear its true fruit. We are grateful to Fiona for pushing the boundaries a bit further and providing us with more material to give consideration to.
18 Oct 2011 |
