Build A More Resilient Community

This session is a deeper dive into the material from last year’s session by speaker, Monica McConkey’s. Earlier, the coalition sent out a survey asking the community to rank the 11 factors that build resilience as a community. Out of the 34 responses, the top 3 ranked items were the following:

1. Social Networks and Support:

• Build a sense of community that contributes to the resilience of individuals and groups
• Successful groups create relationships with common purpose, provide strong bonds, sense of belonging, identity and social support

1. Positive Outlook:

• Having a positive outlook involves being confident and optimistic about the future, persevering, being determined, keeping a sense of humor, and a willingness to change.
• Individuals and groups with a positive outlook tend to view adversity or hardship as a challenge to be overcome rather than an insurmountable problem.
• Learning to challenge negative or unhelpful thoughts and replacing them with more helpful ones is a useful way to develop positive outlooks

1. Early Experience:

• Experiences that people have during childhood and teenage years can have an enormous impact on their later wellbeing.
• Early childhood experiences that are influential in building resilience include the degree to which caregivers meet emotional and physiological needs, the consistency & appropriation of discipline, the opportunities for learning and growth, and the values transmitted by important role models.

This session will guide us to create ideas for implementing events, experiences, or programs that help facilitate the building of these 3 key things.