Resilience is generally understood to be an individual’s ability to overcome adversity and continue his or her normal development. In the BRAVE, we use a more ecological and culturally sensitive definition. Dr. Michael Ungar, Director of the RRC, has suggested that resilience is better understood as follows:
“In the context of exposure to significant adversity, resilience is both the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to the psychological, social, cultural, and physical resources that sustain their well-being, and their capacity individually and collectively to negotiate for these resources to be provided in culturally meaningful ways.”