The Resilience Framework is based on Resilient Therapy (RT), the name we’ve given to the set of ideas and practices originally developed by Angie Hart and Derek Blincow, with help from Helen Thomas as part of a book. We took the resilience research evidence base and put it together with other sets of ideas gleaned from our practice with very disadvantaged children and families in an NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Clinic. Alongside this, Angie’s adoptive parenting knowledge went into the mix and, more recently, we’ve collected experiences from those we are working with in our resilience Communities of Practice.
We distilled all these different sets of ideas into a handy table that summarises our approach and acts as a reminder to people of what’s included. We’ve called this table various things over the years, and have represented it in different ways – firstly, as a Resilient Therapy Magic Box of potions and remedies, a toolkit of ideas, then a more detailed summary table.
Current Resilience Framework for children and young people
The current Resilience Framework doesn’t use the language of ‘therapy’, so that it is more accessible to a wider range of people. It is available as a black and white Framework in case you, or the young people you support, prefer to colour code it yourselves, or don’t have access to a colour printer. It is available to download in a range of languages, which we are adding to all the time (see below). There is also a blank Framework so that you can write your own items if you wish.
All our Frameworks are available as PDFs and can be downloaded and used for free from the Boingboing website (but please clearly acknowledge Boingboing in anything that you draw on in your own work, and add links to the Boingboing website so that users can access the detailed rationale and processes applied to using our tools; this is also so that we can show our funders how popular our stuff is!). Have a look at the Resilient Therapy background page for a quick overview and a few ideas to get you started with this approach.
Other versions
We’ve designed an Interactive Resilience Framework especially for schools, which is designed to be user-friendly, allowing you to click on areas that interest you to find out more. It was developed especially for working with schools, holding the children and young people in mind, and is one of the free suite of resources from the Academic Resilience Approach. Each link takes you to a glossary section with further information about that particular approach, including expanding on what it is, why it is important and how it could be achieved in a school context, what young people themselves think about it, and examples of relevant research evidence with further references. We know teachers and school staff are incredibly busy, so we’ve tried to keep it short and sweet, allowing you to dip in and out depending on what you want to know, and giving you a starting point if you want to find out more.
The Resilience Framework for Primary School children was co-produced by the Resilience Committee at Marton Primary School, Blackpool, with the support of Stephen Donnelly, Graphic Designer from Blackpool Council, and Nathan Parker, Youth Engagement Lead for HeadStart Blackpool. The Marton Primary School children learned some valuable resilience and technological skills during the process, which involved rewording some of the items in a more meaningful way for the children, and we think it looks fab!
The Resilience Framework for Adults applies ideas from the resilience evidence base to adult mental health, drawing on concepts more usually applied in this context, for example the recovery approach. The adult Framework was developed as part of Josh Cameron’s PhD research into the work-related needs and experiences of people recovering from mental health problems. It is also available in German.
The Family Resilience Framework was designed to support members of the wider family (parents, siblings, carers etc.) and was developed by Rhian Adams, Tiffany Bales, Laura Brown and Sarah Henderson from Newport Mind, with the support of the participants of the Newport Mind Community of Practice. The need for a Family Framework became apparent when resilience workers recognised that members of the wider family also needed to improve their own resilience. A family approach to resilience was needed in order to provide seamless family intervention which would ensure self-sufficiency once support workers withdrew. The Family Framework emerged from a series of Community of Practice (CoP) meetings involving health professionals, social workers, young people and parents who had previously received support, in order to gather input on how the Framework categories could be utilised in a family context. Discussions within the CoP took place around how each area of the Framework could be adapted to apply to everyday family life. The terminology was determined by all members of the CoP, ensuring that language and content was universally understandable. It is also available in Italian.
A group of parents and carers from Blackpool, known as the ‘Parents of the Revolution’, have co-produced another family version, building on previous work by Newport Mind and the Framework graphics created as part of Blackpool’s town-wide Resilience Revolution. The group are rightly proud to be from Blackpool and have chosen landmarks from their town to represent the ideas within the Framework, which could easily be adapted for another area. The Blackpool Co-produced Family Resilience Framework contains a short description and some suggestions. You can also download a one-page version that just contains the Framework.
Other languages
The Resilience Framework has been translated into many different languages below, with more on the way:
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Arabic |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Danish |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – French |
 The Resilience Framework for Adults – French |
| The Resilience Framework for Primary School Children – German |
 The Resilience Framework for Adults – German |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Greek |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Italian |
 The Resilience Framework for Families – Italian |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Norwegian |
 The Resilience Framework for Primary School Children – Polish |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Portuguese |
| The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Spanish |
 The Resilience Framework for Families – Spanish |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Swedish |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Turkish |
 The Resilience Framework for Children & Young People – Welsh |
Using the Resilience Framework
All our Frameworks are available as PDFs and can be downloaded and used for free from the Boingboing website. We’re always interested and excited when people want to use our work in new and creative ways or different contexts. So that we can maintain our academic and intellectual integrity we’ve put together a few guidelines that we’d like you to follow:
- Please clearly acknowledge Boingboing in anything that you draw on in your own work, and add links to the Boingboing website so that users can access the detailed rationale and processes applied to using our tools.
- When you use the Framework please make sure you reference it fully, e.g., ‘Resilience Framework (Children and Young People) Oct 2012 – Boingboing, adapted from Hart and Blincow with Thomas 2007’.
- Please don’t change the Framework! People make lots of really interesting suggestions for things that could be included, some of which do get developed into alternative versions of the Framework (e.g., adult and family versions), but as our work is evidence-based, we need robust supporting evidence to back up any changes. So if you’ve got some evidence and ideas, please use them in your own name or sound them out with us.
- When you are using the Framework we’d ask you to stay true to the BoingBoing aim, which is ‘To model and promote resilience research and practice that challenges social inequalities drawing on all our skills as staff, volunteers and friends.’ For us that means working co-productively, inclusively with the individual and wider system or context.
If you’ve got any other questions about using our stuff please e-mail us.
