Pathways to Resilience III: Beyond Nature vs. Nurture

Community Interventions:

Abstract #85
Resilience Research and Community Practice: A View from the Bridge
Presenter: Kathy Marshall Emerson
Abstract:
With a unique 25-year history of honoring both evolving resilience research and innovative community projects designed to foster the resilience of children, youth and adults, Kathy Marshall Emerson offers a hopeful and potentially field-changing view. She bridges the gap between research and practice and raises fundamental questions designed to improve our shared future work. What is the power of a particular definition of resilience? What American federally funded science has been ignored? How does the natural thinking of a human-being shape experience in the moment? Where does spirituality fit in our understanding of resilience? What resilience researchers and education experts make good bedfellows for successful community systems change efforts? What is realistic to expect of community research or evaluation efforts? Where the hope and what is is practical? What research history is helpful to preserve? What resources need to become readily available?
This session draws on participant experience, and examples from more than two decades of community-based resilience projects and academic learning facilitated by Marshall Emerson. “Resilience research and community practice can inform each other well. The view from the bridge is essential if we wish to impact a global world at a critical time.

Abstract #88
The Social Inclusion, The Community Strategies To Achieve it
Presenter: Sofía Porro
Abstract:
The exclusion is a process, but not static phenomenon, so we can consider  that the inclusion have a transitory character, it is depending on different situations.
The economic element is one the main factors  in the inclusion process, but there are others, legal´s and social´s character. All of these elements have an influence on   social recognition of the persons or the groups of them, and also in their participation in the society. So it is necessary to find strategies  for the social inclusion social, to permit to the persons or groups of them to play a part in the society. - Participation, a way for the social inclusion. I consider that the participation is very important for the social inclusion and the community development. To  develop the participation process, we have to take in account not only the community social problems, and also three important elements: the motivation, the formation and the organization. The social prevention is also very important in the inclusion process, it includes alternatives to the material and spiritual improvement to the people. The preventive action is one of the social function of all  communitarian intervention, it has as a purpose, the identification of the problems and to perform actions in order to resolve them.

Abstract #94
The ‘Be the Peace, Make a Change’ Project: Coordinated Community Responses to Violence
Presenter: Nancy Ross Co-presenter: Sue Bookchin
Abstract:
The ‘Be the Peace, Make a Change’ project, funded by Status Women Canada to the Second Story Women’s center in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia has employed innovative measures to engage the community in developing a plan to reduce interpersonal violence.  This three-year project has focused on engaging boys and girls, and women and men to develop protective and promotive processes associated with resiliency in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.  Innovative community engagement processes that included Open Space Technology and Appreciative Inquiry were used to harness local expertise at two large community forums, to learn what factors are believed to contribute to violence reduction and to map and plan further community measures. These measures broadly focused on the creation of social and physical ecologies that promote resiliency across the whole lifespan. Three major components of a coordinated response included awareness, prevention and intervention.  A community plan was born, from the initial establishment of twelve working groups and now focuses on three major areas.  A) Youth, Parents and Schools that prioritize the development of healthy relationships; B) First Voice and Gender Dynamics that include regular meetings of men, women and people; and C) Partners in Justice that include working with the police.