Evaluating the effectiveness of a resilience program for children and young people in a private australian psychology clinic

There is increasing research into resilience enllancing intervention programs in young people. A number of international resilience-based group programs exist; however, few are within Australia. Two Australian resilience programs are the linked-Up (13-16 year-olds) and Connect-3 (8-12 year-olds) programs. They are Solution-Focused programs based on the Resilience Doughnut model. The current study assessed the effectiveness of these two programs by comparing pre- and post-measures of resilience and adversities. Participants were aged between 8-17 years. There were 70 participants in total, 40 males (57%) and 30 females (43%). Results show that the Connect-3 program built personal competency and reduced total difficulties within a non-clinical population. The linked-Up group showed no significant change in scores for pre-intervention to post-intervention. Future research should aim to explore the effectiveness of the resilience programs within clinical populations or with young people who have increased risk of adversity. Future research should also consider how resilience could be enhanced in older-adolescent populations.