Is Resilience Possible? Prospects after Reintegration into Regular School

fter formal or informal exclusion from mainstream primary schools in the Brisbane area, 300 students with learning difficulties and behaviour problems have been referred to Tennyson Special School (TSS) between 1973 and 2003. Archival analysis of records kept at Tennyson Special School has been supplemented by analysis of files held by Department of Families Services (DFS). About 75 % of TSS students also have a file at DFS, which, in some cases, continues to age 18. Data obtained from TSS files have permitted coding for 200 variables covering seven areas (student's familial, psychosocial, cognitive, and health profiles; sending schools ' disciplinary strategies; preplacement programs and support history; and academic history and progress at exit). Data obtained from DFS includes child protection notifications, placement, and proven juvenile offending histories. Data is also being obtained from Queensland Police Services (QPS) files, which cover all contacts with the criminal justice system during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Relationships among the archives are considered, and preliminary aggregate across-archive findings on the educational and social trajectories of this seriously at risk population are reported. The complex journey toward reintegration or further social exclusion is illustrated by thematic features of file data, which reflects on resilience as