This short article summarises the key findings of a systematic review conducted by Jean-Thorn and colleagues (2023) that examined whether community factors can help foster resilience in young people (aged ≤24 years) who have experienced maltreatment. It provides some insights for practitioners and services working to support young people and their families where maltreatment may have occurred.

Introduction

Experiences of maltreatment¹ can have a range of negative effects on a young person’s immediate and long-term health and development. These experiences have been associated with behavioural and emotional problems, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety (Jean-Thorn et al., 2023).

It is estimated that 62% of Australians (aged 16–65 years) have experienced at least one type of maltreatment as a child (Higgins et al., 2023). Among those who’ve experienced a single type of childhood maltreatment, 36% developed a mental health disorder in adulthood, while 55% of those who experienced multiple types of maltreatment developed a mental health disorder (Scott et al., 2023).

Not all people who experience maltreatment as a child will develop mental health or behavioural challenges (Jean-Thorn et al., 2023). Despite the adversity they’ve experienced, some young people show resilience and are able to adapt positively (Jean-Thorn et al., 2023).

Understanding the factors that can foster resilience in young people, or protect them from the adverse effects of maltreatment, can inform the development of programs, practices or services that target or support these factors.

Individual factors, such as a young person’s individual characteristics and behaviours, as well as their family and social relationships, can influence young people’s ability to positively adapt to adversity.

There is also some evidence that a young person’s broader social and community environment, such as school, community services or the quality of their neighbourhood, can influence the development of resilience (Jean-Thorn et al., 2023). The presence of community-level protective factors may be especially important for extending the reach of specialist supports and/or in helping to support young people who do not have access to specialised support services (Jean-Thorn et al., 2023).

This article summarises a systematic review (Jean-Thorn et al., 2023) on whether community factors influence resilience among young people who’ve experience maltreatment and provides some insights for practitioners and services.

Jean-Thorn and colleagues’ (2023) review synthesised 44 quantitative studies exploring the association between community factors and resilience. They also considered other factors that may indicate resilience through their presence (e.g. self-esteem) or absence (e.g. depressive symptoms).

What is resilience and how common is it after maltreatment?

The term ‘resilience’ refers to the process of a person being able to access and draw on personal resources (e.g. planning and decision-making skills) or external resources (e.g. social supports) to positively adapt to challenges or adversity (Gartland et al., 2019).

It is unclear how common resilience after maltreatment is. In their review, Jean-Thorn and colleagues (2023) found that between 2% and 67% of young people who had experienced maltreatment displayed resilience. They suggest that this wide range is due to inconsistencies in the way the studies they reviewed had defined or measured resilience.

For example, some studies defined resilience as the absence of clinical levels of mental health challenges, while other studies defined it as the presence of one or more positive attributes such as self-esteem. Although we know that at least some young people who have experienced maltreatment display some form of resilience, these differing definitions make it difficult to know exactly how common resilience is after maltreatment.

Community factors that can help foster resilience

In the context of this resource, and Jean-Thorn and colleagues’ (2023) review, community factors are a type of external resource that may be available to people facing adversity. Resilience can therefore potentially be strengthened by improving the quality and accessibility of these resources (Gartland et al., 2019).

Despite the inconsistencies in the way resilience has been measured, Jean-Thorn and colleagues (2023) found that the following community factors can help to develop some form of resilience in young people who’ve experienced maltreatment (these are outlined in more detail in Table 1):

• having a supportive or caring relationship with an adult outside of the family (e.g. camp counsellor, cultural or religious leader)
• being involved in extracurricular activities (e.g. sports club, mentored group, academic club)
• school factors such as feeling safe at school, receiving encouragement at school, liking school and feeling part of the school community
• neighbourhood quality (e.g. quality of life in the neighbourhood)
• accessing and using community services
• for children in contact with child protective services, such as out-of-home care, factors such as having a stable caregiver, having minimal movements while in care or between care and returning to their parents, and parents receiving specialist support when the child was returned to them from care.

The review found that school factors and neighbourhood quality had the most consistent and strongest evidence for improving an individual’s resilience following maltreatment.

Feeling safe and connected at school, receiving encouragement at school and liking school were consistently associated with positive outcomes such as improved school performance and reduced mental health challenges (Table 1).

Higher neighbourhood quality was also consistently associated with increased resilience in young people. Resilience here was measured using a combination of factors including fewer mental health challenges, increased daily living skills and having a positive relationship with parents.

These findings suggest that policies and infrastructure that may improve protective school factors (e.g. teacher relational skills, sufficient funding and resources (Barksdale et al., 2021)) or neighbourhood factors (e.g. green spaces, affordable housing, public transport (Gocer et al., 2023)) are likely to be important for fostering resilience in young people.

Other community factors (e.g. neighbourhood safety, being part of a supportive and connected community, feeling supported by adults or services at school and moving schools) were found to have inconsistent or conflicting findings regarding their impact on resilience.

Table 1: Community factors associated with resilience and other related outcomes among young people who’ve experienced maltreatment

Notes: Bolded factors were found to have the most consistent and strongest evidence for fostering resilience in the review. ¹ This term was not defined in the review or original research study.

Implications for practice and services

Based on the findings of the Jean-Thorn and colleagues (2023) review, the following considerations and approaches may be useful for practitioners and services who are working with children and young people who’ve experienced maltreatment and are looking for ways to promote or enhance child resilience.

Practitioners

• Be mindful that although experiencing maltreatment can often lead to mental health and behavioural challenges, this is not the case for all young people. Each young person will bring their own unique strengths and experiences, and some will be able to draw on resources available to help them overcome the adversity they’ve faced.
• When assessing a young person’s ability to be resilient, in addition to their individual characteristics and family relationships, also consider the availability and quality of the resources in their community.
• Support young people and their families to identify and access resources within their community that may foster resilience. Practitioners can speak with families about what community resources they’re already engaged with, how these connections could be strengthened, and whether there are any additional resources they could access. For example, practitioners can consider asking families:
  • Is there a trusted adult outside of the family that the young person can or does have a caring and positive relationship with? How could this relationship be strengthened?
  • Is the young person interested or involved in any extracurricular activities? Are there affordable or free activities in the family’s local area that the young person could become involved in?
  • How does the young person feel at school? Are there supports in the school that the family could access? Is there a trusted adult in the school that could help support the young person?

Services

• Consider whether the community factors identified in the review may be useful for identifying or designing potential programs in your service. Accessing and drawing on community factors may be a useful element to explore for programs to foster resilience among young people who’ve experienced maltreatment.

Additional considerations

The following additional considerations are informed by, but not directly drawn from, the findings of the Jean-Thorn et al. (2023) review. These considerations may be useful for some practitioners and services to help support their work in promoting child and family wellbeing and resilience.

• Practitioners may wish to familiarise themselves with best practices for working with young people and families where maltreatment has occurred. Practical tips are provided in the Further reading and related resources
• Practitioners and services can build the evidence base for 'what works' in this area by evaluating practices and programs that intend to foster resilience among children and young people who’ve experienced maltreatment. Indicators for how to measure resilience are available here.
• Services could consider whether their service delivery is consistent with a trauma-informed approach to care. Information on trauma-informed service delivery is provided in the Further reading and related resources
• Services may wish to reflect on how they can make their service or programs feel safe for young people and thereby possibly contribute to the available resources within a young person’s community. For example, young people feel safer in places that are bright, cheerful and feel welcoming, and where there are adults who they can trust, are accessible and who genuinely care about them (Moore, 2017).
• Services could consider whether and how they interact with other services. Multiple services across different sectors (e.g. education, health, social, welfare) working together may help to foster resilience by creating a more holistic service response to maltreatment and by reducing the siloing of services. This likely requires trust and positive relationships between services as well as an understanding of other services, their practices and referral pathways (Prosser, 2021).

Conclusion

Being resilient involves accessing personal and external resources to help to overcome and adapt positively to adversity. There is a lot of variation in how resilience has been measured in the research evidence, meaning it is difficult to know how common it is after maltreatment. Nevertheless, people and services within a young person’s community can help them in fostering resilience after maltreatment has occurred.

Jean-Thorn and colleagues’ (2023) review of the impact on community factors on resilience found that having a relationship with an adult outside of the family, being involved in extracurricular activities, feeling connected and safe at school, living in a neighbourhood of high quality, and having access to community services can promote resilience in young people who’ve experienced maltreatment.

For young people in contact with child protective services and/or who are in out-of-home care, having a stable caregiver, having minimal movements while in care, and having parents receiving specialist support when the child returns from care may help foster resilience.

Practitioners working with young people and their families can support them to identify and access resources within their community to help improve resilience. They can speak with families about how these connections can be strengthened. Services can also consider whether the community factors that are associated with promoting resilience may be useful for identifying or designing potential programs. Practitioners and services could also evaluate these programs for effectiveness.

How was this resource developed?

This short article summarises the findings of a systematic review conducted by Jean-Thorn et al. (2023) titled, A Systematic Review of Community-Level Protective Factors in Children Exposed to Maltreatment, and discusses implications for practice. This study was published in the journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse in September 2022.

Jean-Thorn and colleagues (2023) searched PsycNet between December 2020 and January 2021 using terms related to child, maltreatment and community to identify relevant studies. They included peer reviewed studies that were published in English or in French, reported on quantitative data, had at least 30 participants, sampled children or adolescents aged ≤24 years who had experienced maltreatment, examined the association between community factors and resilience, and reported on whether there were increases or decreases in resilience.

All types of maltreatment were included (e.g. sexual abuse, physical, emotional and psychological maltreatment, or neglect). Studies that examined children or adolescents that were exposed to intimate partner violence only were excluded. Although Jean-Thorn and colleagues (2023) included studies published in any country, the vast majority of included studies were published in the USA (n = 30), followed by Europe or the United Kingdom (n = 6).

The aim of these CFCA short articles summarising systematic reviews is to translate recent research into an accessible format for our audience. Systematic reviews provide high quality overviews of research on selected topics. We have chosen this review because it provides the most recent summary of evidence on a topic highly relevant to the CFCA audience.

Further reading and related resources

Supporting families to connect with their community

• How a ‘village’ approach can support infant and toddler mental health: Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) webinar on supporting parents to engage with and build a supportive community to promote infant and toddler mental health.
• The child and their local ecology: An Emerging Minds resource on building a supportive community around children and their family to support child mental health.
• Practitioner guide: Connection and belonging resources: A collection of resources put together by Emerging Minds on supporting children and their family to build connections within and outside of their family.

Resources for services

• Collaborative practice in child and family welfare: AIFS webinar on how practitioners working with children and families can collaborate with other professionals in different sectors.
• Protection through participation: This AIFS resource outlines what helps young people feel safe within organisations.
• Trauma-informed care in child/family welfare services: AIFS resource that explores what trauma-informed service delivery means in the context of delivering child and family welfare services in Australia.
• It takes a village: Understanding the drivers that facilitate interagency collaboration for improved mental health outcomes for children aged 0–12: Emerging Minds resource on the barriers and facilitators of collaboration between services to improve child mental health.

Supporting families where child maltreatment has occurred

• Responding to children and young people’s disclosures of abuse: AIFS guide on how to respond to children and young people's disclosures of abuse.
• Working with children who've been sexually abused: Emerging Minds webinar on working with children and families where sexual abuse has occurred.
• Child protection concerns: Working with families: Emerging Minds resource on working with parents when there are child protection concerns.
• Supporting children who have experienced trauma podcast: This podcast episode by Emerging Minds looks at working with children who have experienced abuse or neglect.

References

Barksdale, C., Peters, M. L., & Corrales, A. (2021). Middle school students’ perceptions of classroom climate and its relationship to achievement. Educational Studies, 47(1), 84–107.

Gartland, D., Riggs, E., Muyeen, S., Giallo, R., Afifi, T. O., MacMillan, H. et al. (2019). What factors are associated with resilient outcomes in children exposed to social adversity? A systematic review. BMJ Open, 9(4), e024870.

Gocer, O., Wei, Y., Torun, A. O., Alvanides, S., & Candido, C. (2023). Multidimensional attributes of neighbourhood quality: A systematic review. Heliyon.

Higgins, D. J., Mathews, B., Pacella, R., Scott, J. G., Finkelhor, D., Meinck, F. et al. (2023). The prevalence and nature of multi-type child maltreatment in Australia. Medical Journal of Australia, 218, S19–S25.

Jean-Thorn, A., Tremblay-Perreault, A., Dubé, V., & Hébert, M. (2023). A systematic review of community-level protective factors in children exposed to maltreatment. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 24(4), 2827–2842. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15248380221117234

Moore, T. (2017). Protection through participation: Involving children in child-safe organisations. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies. aifs.gov.au/resources/practice-guides/protection-through-participation

Prosser, S. (2021). It takes a village: Understanding the drivers that facilitate interagency collaboration for improved mental health outcomes for children aged 0–12. Adelaide: Emerging Minds. emergingminds.com.au/resources/it-takes-a-village-understanding-the-drivers-that-facilitate-interagency-collaboration-for-improved-mental-health-outcomes-for-children-aged-0-12/#introduction

Scott, J. G., Malacova, E., Mathews, B., Haslam, D. M., Pacella, R., Higgins, D. J. et al. (2023). The association between child maltreatment and mental disorders in the Australian Child Maltreatment Study. Medical Journal of Australia, 218, S26–S33.

¹ In this resource, and the review that it summarises, maltreatment is defined as experiencing sexual, physical, emotional, psychological abuse or neglect (Jean-Thorn et al., 2023).