Resilience among children in child welfare, corrections, mental health and educational settings: Recommendations for service

ABSTRACT: In this paper I explore how social service delivery systems influence the pathways children travel to resilience. In particular, I look at children’s navigation to the health resources that are available through service delivery systems and their negotiation with service providers for service once under a provider’s mandate. Two case examples are used to illustrate health-enhancing and health-challenging patterns of service pro-vision and utilization among high-risk youth. I then address two questions that are critical to understanding children’s pathways to resilience: ‘‘What services do children say they need to achieve resilience?’ ’ and ‘‘How does the structure of services affect children’s access to the health resources required to nurture and sustain resilience?’’ KEY WORDS: health resources; navigation; negotiation; youth-in-care. A large and varied literature has examined resilience in at-risk children and youth from the perspective of their behaviour and psy-chosocial characteristics. Less developed is our understanding of the structural conditions that support the healthy development of children who lack individual, family, community, and sociopolitical resources to sustain health when faced with the multiple adversities of lives lived at-risk. Furthermore, we know little about children’s pathways through the different systems that are mandated to provide for their needs. In particular we have little theory to explain how children manage to survive and thrive with or without these services. In this paper I explore how the social service delivery systems that most influence the day-to-day lives of at-risk children in Wester