Measuring resilience in childhood using data from the Tellus surveys

An adequate population measure of the emotional wellbeing of children and young people has long been a gap in the portfolio of outcome measures. This paper considers the potential utility of the concept of resilience. Resilience has been described as the capacity of individuals to negotiate challenges successfully without experiencing long term harm. The concept of resilience was operationalised drawing on existing literature and a scale of resilience was developed from questions in the national Tellus survey. The relevance and utility of the scale was explored using data from Tellus for a case study city. Scores on the resilience scale were compared with factors or behaviours that the literature suggests are likely to be present in resilient children. It was found that children with higher resilience scores were more likely to present with characteristics and behaviours consistent with positive emotional wellbein