Resilience as Children Return To School

By Dr Lee Randall

Resilience in a Time of COVID

I think it is safe to say that 2020 has not turned out like we all would have predicted. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted on the lives of everyone across the world and the uncertainty and changes it has imposed upon our societies continue to be felt throughout the globe. If there is one psychological factor that I think has helped people to cope with and come through the crisis, it would have to be resilience. Resilience encompasses our ability to cope with and manage stress and adversity, recover when we encounter setbacks and grow from the challenges we face and mistakes we make and it seems clear that people who are better equipped to do those things, are better able to manage adverse situations more effectively, no matter how big or small they might be.

As an educational psychologist however, my concern has been for those children and families who are struggling to be resilient during the pandemic. Resilience is a complex and multi-faceted thing which is impacted by many different dispositional and situation factors at any one time. Many of the factors that people use to bolster their resilience such as connecting with others, engaging in favoured activities or achieving things in their lives have been significantly curtailed or even eliminated at different periods throughout the pandemic. When this is combined with the significant increases in stress and worry many people have experienced with regards to health, jobs, finances and politics, it is little wonder that mental health professionals are anticipating a significant increase in mental health problems in the adult and child population as we head towards 2021.

In schools, we see the impact that poor resilience has on children and classrooms on a daily basis.

Children who give up and lose motivation after making the slightest mistake,
Peers who don’t have the negotiation and compromise skills to get on and solve social problems,
Pupils who consistently disrupt learning to take the focus away from their lack of confidence,
Students who resort to aggression because they do not have the emotional literacy to cope with adversity.

These children cause us the greatest concern and can make learning for themselves and others very difficult. The fact is however that, in many cases, it doesn’t have to be like this…

RISE in Response

During the pandemic, we at The Educational Psychologists decided that we needed to do something to support children, schools and families upon the return to school in September 2020. We felt that the biggest contribution we could make would be to find a way to support as many children as we could to develop their resilience and increase their ability to manage current, and future challenges. This led us to develop the Resilience in Schools and Education program, RISE.

RISE is a meticulously research and evidence-based program in which school staff learn about what resilience is, the elements that comprise it and most importantly, how to build it within their schools and classrooms. RISE explores the ‘Eight Pillars of Resilience’ in detail, exploring each pillar and outlining its importance for resilience before discussing practical and easily implementable strategies to build up that pillar of resilience with children in our schools. We then pull everything together into a cohesive whole school strategy for implementing school-wide resilience in the form of our ‘Resilience Growth’ model.

RISE and Mental Health Promotion

The COVID-19 pandemic has tested children’s resilience as it has added to the stress on children and families and taken away many of their resilience factors. While a lot of schools have seen children currently experiencing a ‘honeymoon period’ with the excitement to see their friends and have the structure and stability of school once again, we know the impact that COVID lockdowns has had on children’s mental health and wellbeing. Now is perhaps the best time to be focusing on children’s resilience to prevent future difficulties from arising, and increase children’s capacity to feel settled and learn in schools. Some researchers and psychologists like to refer to this as the inoculation period to prevent more significant difficulties from arising in the future. However, knowing how important resilience on the long-term outcomes for children, we really hope that the current period will give us the tools to continue building all children’s resilience as we move into a post-COVID world.

RISE Beyond COVID

We believe that this program will not only support children and school staff through the current crisis, but also help to build better learning environments within schools as well as equipping children with the skills they need to succeed throughout their school lives and on into adulthood. Not only do we anticipate a reduction in the negative consequences that we see in those displaying a lack of resilience, (e.g. peer conflict, defiance, emotional dysregulation, giving up, low self-confidence, etc.) we would also expect to see a significant increase in the positive behaviours engendered by high levels of resilience (e.g. pro-social behaviours, acts of kindness, growth mindset, self-efficacy, etc.). It is in this way that we believe the RISE program will have positive impacts not only for the mental health and wellbeing of children and staff in schools, but also upon attainment, engagement and diligence within lessons.

The RISE Program

We are currently developing the RISE program for our online platform ‘EdPsychEd’ which will be going live in Early 2021. On EdPsychEd, schools will be able to access the full RISE course which includes over 30 strategies for building resilience, as well as dozens of resources for you to use within your classrooms. EdPsychEd will consist of dozens of short videos, interspersed with resources and small tasks that can be accessed anywhere and at anytime. EdPsychEd will track your progress on the course, enable you to stop and pick up where you left off with ease and enable school staff to receive top quality training, without the need to use up an INSET day or squeeze in a few twilight sessions here and there.

The RISE & Recovery Webinar

In the meantime however, my colleague Dr Richard Skelton and I are holding two free webinar events in November in which we will discuss RISE in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and what we have learned about resilience since returning to work with our schools in September. We will be discussing our general definition of resilience and focus on three key pillars of resilience that we believe are the most pertinent to supporting children through the current crisis, these pillars are:

Connectedness
Coping
Confidence

Following an initial exploration of these pillars, we will share the most effective and practical strategies that SENCOs and Teachers can use to build children’s resilience in these areas.

RISE and Recovery