Phillips, G. (2008) Resilience in practice interventions. Child Care in Practice, 14(1), 45-54.

Resilience is normally sought in the child, family and the community. It is a complex term that needs to be understood in context. This paper seeks to locate and trace resilience in the practitioner. It also examines how practitioners foster resilient interventions. A number of practice examples, taken from the author’s own practice experience, are interlaced throughout the text; it is hoped these examples may provide further illumination to the area of applying resilience to practice. It takes a paradoxical view of how failure is characterised in relation to resilience, and will examine the author’s own failure to be resilient, as a way of extracting the hidden meanings of resilience. It examines global factors that are associated with building resilience and how these can be applied to practice. The influence of poverty as a determining factor in practice interventions is examined, in relation to building resilience in the worker, the child, the family and the community. The prescience of the "ordinary magic" of resilience and how this is related to everyday practice is also examined. The paper will conclude by outlining a number of key messages in relation to the connection between the concept of resilience and practice.