January 2011

Events

• Resilience: What’s new? Now what can we do?

  The Best Start Resource Centre Annual Conference is taking place February 22-24, 2011 at the BMO Institute for Learning in Toronto. The organizers developed a full-day session called "Resilience: What’s new? Now what can we do" as one of their pre-conference sessions on February 22nd. It will be an event of interest to all those working with children up to the age of 6 years, families with young children or early years service providers. This pre-conference workshop will highlight current theory and research about resilience and what this means for practitioners. Examples of current initiatives and programs will be presented as well as strategies that participants can use to promote resilience in children around them.

• Resilience: new intervention perspectives on rehabilitation – Register before January 31, 2011 to get the discount rate!

  The conference organizing committee is pleased to announce that registrations are now open. This event will be held April 27- 28 2011 in Montreal, Quebec. The objectives are: to understand the practical significance of the concept of resilience applied to rehabilitation or to other areas; develop knowledge on approaches, methods and techniques to integrate the concept of resilience in rehabilitation and to other areas of intervention; consider organizational or management practices that could support the process of resilience for the user of health services or his family; develop links on provincial, national and international levels among researchers, professionals and users in order to develop research projects and interventions that include resilience.
  Document (PDF - 89.2 kb)

• CALL FOR PAPERS - The 16th International Conference on violence, abuse and trauma

  This conference will be held in San Diego, USA September 11-14, 2011. Topics & Threads will include: Adult Survivors of Childhood Victimization, Children Exposed to Violence, Child Maltreatment, Sexual Abuse Survivors & Offenders, Intimate Partner Violence Offenders & Victims, Legal & Criminal Justice Issues, Trauma in the Military, At Risk Youth, Trauma in General, Underserved Populations – Elders, People with Disabilities, LGBTQ, People of Color, Substance Abuse. The call for abstract submissions deadline is February 18, 2011.

  http://www.ivatcenters.org/Conferences/2011/2011ICCall.pdf

• Resilience 2011 Resilience, Innovation and Sustainability: Navigating the Complexities of Glooal Changes

  This event will take place March 11-16, 2011 in Tempe, Arizona, USA. The objective is to bring together representatives from a number of different communities that have not widely overlapped before. The conference is designed to strengthen such trans-disciplinary and cross-thematic ties by embracing the diversity of disciplines and skills required to address growing concerns about the long-term sustainability of the current global human-environmental system. One particular panel will focus on Children’s resilience to environmental change. The interdisciplinary panel will give voice to children’s experiences of resilience and capacity for agency in response to environmental change. The panel will debate the opportunities and limits (including ethical, political, cultural and practical) of children’s roles in adaptation and will identify conditions that support and constrain children’s resilience in the face of injustice, oppression or instability.

• XIX World Family Therapy Congress

  The 19th World Family Therapy Congress will be held March 30 - April 2, 2011 in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. The 2011 Congress has as its theme: Family Therapy: Coming Together for Peace, Justice, and Healing. The Congress will focus on presenting approaches to problems and ways of coping with them and helping to heal hurting families, couples and children in various cultures.

News

• MSU leads first study of resiliency on the battlefield

  In the first combat-zone study of its kind, a research team led by Michigan State University found that soldiers with a positive outlook in the most traumatic situations were less likely to suffer health problems such as anxiety and depression. The study, which surveyed Army troops fighting in Iraq, could have implications for police officers, firefighters and others who regularly deal with traumatic events such as death. Training these first-responders to think in less catastrophic terms could help them better cope with distressing events and function more effectively in the long term, said MSU’s John Schaubroeck, lead researcher on the project.

• Researchers suggest diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder are lacking

  Current diagnostic procedures for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) fail to adequately reflect research into the broad nature of a traumatic event, according to a study that will appear in the January print issue of Psychological Bulletin. The relevancy of an individual’s subjective experience in determining what constitutes a traumatic event has been a source of debate among PTSD specialists for years. The study concludes that both objective and subjective factors are relevant and that current PTSD criteria are missing several reactions that many trauma survivors experience.

• VA study shows high magnitude stressors stronger than military sexual stressors

  A study of long-term, active duty military personnel who used Department of Veterans Affairs’ health services showed that childhood maltreatment and other high magnitude stressors, such as being in a serious accident or a natural disaster, were more strongly associated with participants’ current psychiatric symptoms than were their military sexual experiences, such as sexual harassment. The research is described in issue 44 -16 of the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

• More than 3,000 survivors of the WTC attacks experience long-term post-traumatic stress disorder

  Nearly 10 years after the greatest human-made disaster in U.S. history— the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers — there has been little research documenting the attacks’ consequences among those most directly affected — the survivors who escaped the World Trade Center towers. In a study just released by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, in conjunction with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR), researchers found that of the 3,271 civilians who evacuated the Twin Towers, 95.6% of survivors reported at least one current posttraumatic stress symptom and 15% screened positive for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), two to three years after the disaster.

• Most People Regain Happiness after Job Loss

  As millions of workers have discovered in recent years, losing a job is upsetting and unsettling and can reduce even the most stoic to tears. But about a year later, the majority of people have shaken off the unemployment blues and have returned to their previous levels of happiness, a new study reveals. That runs counter to earlier studies that have suggested job loss is so devastating that most people never fully recovery emotionally, said Isaac Galatzer-Levy, a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and the study’s lead author.

• Violent games not to blame for youth aggression

  How depressed young people are strongly predicts how aggressive and violent they may be or may become. Contrary to popular belief, however, exposure to violence in video games or on television is not related to serious acts of youth aggression or violence among Hispanics in the US, according to new research by Dr. Christopher Ferguson from Texas A&M International University. His findings are published online in Springer’s Journal of Youth and Adolescence. The potential negative effects of violent video games on adolescent antisocial behavior, and youth violence in particular, is a highly debated issue, both in academic circles and among the general public and policy makers. However, to date, the research is inconclusive largely due to methodological problems.

Publications

• Resilience Significantly Contributes to Exceptional Longevity

  This study aims to investigate whether centenarians are significantly more resilient than younger elders and whether resilience significantly contributes to exceptional longevity. Results show that resilience significantly contributes to longevity at all ages, and it becomes even more profound at very advanced ages. These findings indicate that policies and programs to promote resilience would have long-term and positive effects on the well-being and longevity for senior citizens and their families.

• Issues for the safety and wellbeing of children in families with multiple and complex problems: The co-occurrence of domestic violence, parental substance misuse, and mental health problems

  This paper investigates the separate impacts of parental substance misuse, domestic violence and parental mental health problems. It presents evidence regarding the extent to which these problems co-occur and a discussion of the wider context of exclusion and disadvantage, its causes and its consequences. Finally, it provides an overview of research and theory for working with families with multiple and complex problems.

• Recovery from depressive symptoms, state anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder in women exposed to physical and psychological, but not to psychological intimate partner violence alone: A longitudinal study

  It is well established that intimate male partner violence (IPV) has a high impact on women’s mental health. It is necessary to further investigate this impact longitudinally to assess the factors that contribute to its recovery or deterioration. The objective of this study was to assess the course of depressive, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and suicidal behavior over a three-year follow-up in female victims of IPV.

• Resilience under conditions of extreme stress: a multilevel perspective

  Multilevel randomized control prevention and intervention trials have substantial potential for facilitating the promotion of resilient functioning in diverse high-risk populations that have experienced significant adversity. Determining the multiple levels at which change is engendered through randomized control trials will provide insight into the mechanisms of change, the extent to which neural plasticity may be promoted, and the interrelations between biological and psychological processes in the development of maladaptation, psychopathology, and resilience.

• Feasibility of the Positive Thoughts and Actions Prevention Program for Middle Schoolers at Risk for Depression

  Despite the importance of adolescent depression, few school-based prevention programs have been developed and tested in the United States with middle school populations. This study examined the acceptability and changes in targeted outcomes for a new preventative program, Positive Thoughts and Actions (PTA). The PTA prevention program was well received by students and parents, yielding high rates of participation and satisfaction among those randomized to receive the intervention. However, analyses of the efficacy of the program in changing depressive symptoms were not significant.

• Hopelessness and Excessive Drinking among Aboriginal Adolescents: The Mediating Roles of Depressive Symptoms and Drinking to Cope

  Canadian Aboriginal youth show high rates of excessive drinking, hopelessness, and depressive symptoms. This study proposes that Aboriginal adolescents with higher levels of hopelessness are more susceptible to depressive symptoms, which in turn predispose them to drinking to cope—which ultimately puts them at risk for excessive drinking. Adolescent drinkers from 10 Canadian schools completed a survey consisting of the substance use risk profile scale (hopelessness), the brief symptom inventory (depressive symptoms), the drinking motives questionnaire—revised (drinking to cope), and quantity, frequency, and binge measures of excessive drinking. Bootstrapping indicated that this indirect effect was significant. Both depressive symptoms and drinking to cope should be intervention targets to prevent/decrease excessive drinking among Aboriginal youth high in hopelessness.

• Coping and resilience in adolescents with type 1 diabete

  This article aimed to use a developmentally sensitive coping measure to explore how the use of specific coping strategies impacts resilience (i.e. quality of life, competence and metabolic control) in adolescents with type 1 diabetes T1D. Results show that greater use of primary control coping strategies (e.g. problem solving, emotional expression) was associated with higher competence scores, better quality of life and better metabolic control. The results of this study support the use of developmentally sensitive coping measures by researchers and clinicians to determine the most effective coping strategies for adolescents with T1D.

• Role Modeling, Risk, and Resilience in California Adolescents

  The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between role model presence, type of role model, and various health-risk and health-protective behaviors among California adolescents. Fifty-nine percent of adolescents identified a role model. Affluent teens were more likely to have a role model than lower income teens. In conclusion, not only role model presence but also the type of role model is an important predictor of adolescent health-related behaviors.

• Coping mediates the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and alcohol use in homeless, ethnically diverse women: A preliminary study.

  The focus of this study was to examine whether drinking to cope mediated the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and current alcohol use in a group of homeless, ethnically diverse women. Results revealed that drinking to cope mediated the relationship between PTSD symptoms and current alcohol use. This finding supports the theory that homeless women may benefit from treatment interventions that address both their substance use and trauma issues.

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