I have worked for almost thirty years as a child psychiatrist with families and children who struggle with marked disadvantaged circumstances. I have been interested in resilience as concept for most of that time, and always felt that this was a way into helping these children and their families that held more promise than more pathologically-based approaches. Angie Hart coming to work in child and adolescent mental health services was the impetus we needed to develop this into what became known as Resilient Therapy. Researching ‘resilience’, writing the Resilient Therapy book in 2007, and subsequent articles in family law and child care journals, has helped to refine the approach.
I have since set up adolescent in-patient services where we have been able to see how this approach actually works out in practice, with adolescents who have some of the highest levels of need. I have also used this approach in my work as an expert witness in the family courts. I see many areas where the Resilience Framework can be further developed and look forward to its growing use and adoption by practitioners, families, and the children that we work with and for.
