Pathways to Resilience III: Beyond Nature vs. Nurture

Application of Resilience Theory to Services for Socially Marginalized Youth
Speaker: Kwame McKenzie
In a recent paper published by the British Medical Association, an international group of specialists concluded that the current WHO definition of health was unobtainable and a better way to consider health was the ability to adapt and to be resilient. Similarly mental health may be considered in part the ability to adapt and be resilient psychologically. This lays down a significant challenge to society. Rather than developing “ mental health” services that mainly treat illness, a more balanced approach would be to develop services which promote mental resilience. Furthermore, if resilience is conceptualized as a multi-level phenomenon then, in order to promote an individual’s level of resilience, services should also consider what needs to be done at an environmental level. This would be especially important in the more challenging environments that some marginalized youth are brought up in. This presentation will discuss the implications of resilience theory for mental health services for marginalized youth using Antenna mental health services in the UK as an example.