Resilience - Emerging Minds - ARACY | Punchy Digital Media

Punchy Digital Media delivers animated explainer videos that pack a punch. Our engaging content is designed to capture your audience's attention and convey your message in a memorable way. See how our videos can transform your communication efforts. Learn more: https://www.punchydigitalmedia.com.au/ https://www.punchydigitalmedia.com.au... https://www.punchydigitalmedia.com.au... Transcript: When it comes to building resilience, What surrounds us and happens to us, shapes us. Safe, stable and supportive family and community connections, responsive services and safe, healthy environments allow children to build the skills they need to take opportunities and face life’s challenges. We all have a role to play in ensuring children have these positive relationships and experiences so that they can thrive. The Nest, Australia’s wellbeing framework for children and young people shows us that children’s wellbeing is made up of six connected domains: healthy valued, loved and safe learning identity and culture material basics; and participating. The Nest framework helps us see what a child needs for wellbeing in themselves, at home, and in their community. This framework can also help us to understand how we can build children’s resilience. Throughout life we experience challenges and changes that can impact on our wellbeing. Resilience helps us adapt to difficult situations and find healthy ways to cope. Resilience is not fixed – it emerges from the experiences and supports we receive and the skills we learn over time. One way to think of a child’s resilience is as a scale, where positive and negative experiences, skills and abilities, supportive systems and environments, influence a child’s capacity for resilience. At one end of the scale are positive experiences, including safe, stable, and supportive relationships and environments. When children experience these kinds of supportive relationships and environments they form a strong brain foundation which allows them to develop the coping skills that enable them to believe “I know that good things happen too and that this bad time won’t last forever.” Negative experiences and adversities are represented at the other end of the scale. These negative experiences and sources of toxic stress can undermine our Brain Architecture and leave a child vulnerable, to long-term physical and mental health issues and other challenges. The starting position of the base is underpinned by a child's genetics and environment and can be understood as our initial capacity for resilience. The starting positions of children’s bases vary which means that different children will respond to their environments in different ways. This starting position is not fixed. It can move over time, through experiences and environmental changes, like when the child, adults and community learn how to best support the child and family. By enabling children to build skills and abilities across time we can shift the base towards a more resilient position. A child’s family and circumstances influence their wellbeing in powerful and long-lasting ways. Children and families also need a supportive community around them to help them thrive. Support may come from their neighbourhood, clubs, school, through connection to community and culture, and from services and systems they interact with. The places where children live, learn and play are also key. For example, healthy environments, stable housing and responsive systems all support children’s wellbeing and resilience. When children are supported to work through stress and challenges, they can develop the skills and abilities to improve their resilience over time. In this way, stress can be a healthy part of development. Without support, adversities can become toxic particularly when they are multiple, prolonged, and are not buffered by safe, stable relationships. This can tip a child’s scale towards a negative outcome, and shift their base, making it harder for them to cope with life’s obstacles. And without help to make meaning of these experiences, children can start to feel hopeless and blame themselves for what’s happened. Which can also lead to changes in their behaviour. Having access to professionals and services that are trauma informed and developmentally aware helps to protect and buffer children from the impact of adverse experiences. They can help children to question and challenge negative self-beliefs, and provide them with the supports they need to strengthen and build their resilience. The Nest Wellbeing Framework can help us think about the different positive and adverse experiences that a child may have, and the environments around them, and identify opportunities for support.