Over the course of two half-day sessions in late October, more than 500 members of the Mount Royal community were introduced to the "Resilience Scale" training.
The inaugural Interdisciplinary Symposium Introducing the Resilience Scale was the 12th-annual interdisciplinary symposium held by the Faculty of Health, Community and Education (HCE). Previous topics covered have included relationship violence prevention, disaster recovery and child abuse prevention and intervention.
The Resilience Scale is described as a powerful, evidence-informed tool grounded in brain science that helps individuals and organizations understand how adversity, positive supports and skills and abilities interact to shape lifelong health and well-being. Developed by the Palix Foundation as part of the Brain Story, the Resilience Scale is used in a variety of professional sectors, including health, education, social services and justice to guide practice and policy and to support system-wide change.
Chelan McCallion, assistant professor with the Bachelor of Child Studies, explains that over the course of the symposium participants were guided through exploring how early life experiences shape brain development, learning and long-term well-being and how to use the Resilience Scale as a tool for identifying and addressing challenges and supports in real-world scenarios.
Nancy Mannix, chair and patron of the Palix Foundation, delivered the training to the participants, who engaged in interdisciplinary thinking to understand how health, education, social services and justice systems can work together to build resilience across communities and reduce systemic barriers to well-being.
The exercises following were facilitated by Loni Harker, PhD(c), scientific associate at the Palix Foundation. Recovery and resilience coach Larissa Logozzo bravely shared her personal story of resilience with the students.
"The Resilience Scale illustrates how adversities, or red boxes, can increase vulnerability, while protective factors, called green boxes, such as safe, stable and supportive relationships and environments, can buffer against challenges that we all face during our lives. The third component focuses on the skills and abilities individuals can build, such as emotional regulation and executive function, to strengthen their capacity for resilience. Together, these elements offer a balanced and dynamic view of human development and adaptation across the lifespan," McCallion says.
The science behind the Resilience Scale
The Palix Foundation is a private philanthropic organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities across Alberta and beyond. The Foundation's flagship initiative, the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (AFWI), aligns science, policy and practice in the area of brain development to support the foundations of all health.
Dr. Victoria Meah, PhD, is the scientific director of the Palix Foundation. She explains, "The Brain Story is a collection of six metaphors that explain key aspects of brain development and lifelong health. These metaphors, originally crafted by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, and the FrameWorks Institute, have been applied to influence policy and practice by the AFWI. The Resilience Scale is one of these metaphors, and depicts how positive and negative experiences interact to influence developmental and mental-health outcomes, as well as the impact of core life skills on resilience."
Resilience is essential for living healthy, thriving lives, Meah says. Organizations that work with children and families, such as those HCE graduates will eventually work with, are increasingly making resilience a core goal of their programs. Spurred by this hunger for tools, the AFWI became interested in the potential utility of the Resilience Scale beyond a metaphor.
"The AFWI and several partner organizations saw the opportunity to use the Resilience Scale visual in conversations with clients to help explain what resilience is and how the clinical care decisions practitioners were making would help clients build resilience. The Scale could also help practitioners identify individual clients' needs and assets for each component of the scale to determine appropriate interventions, programming or services aligned with the core design principles."
Over the course of six months in 2020, the AFWI convened a community of practice in which eight organizations participated. Early learnings from that collaboration indicated that the Resilience Scale was an effective visual tool to facilitate resilience communication between practitioners and their clients or patients.
To continue their work, the AFWI established a tri-fold strategy to embed the Brain Story and Resilience Scale in policy and practice to support the needs of individuals, organizations and systems.
"Part of this strategy, focused on the application of the Resilience Scale for assessing individuals needs, was presented at the Interdisciplinary Symposium," Meah says.
"The work of the Palix Foundation and the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative is very important," says acting vice-dean of HCE and associate professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery Dr. Giuliana Harvey, PhD.
"The application of theoretical concepts during the symposium provided learners from various programs the opportunity to engage in rich and meaningful conversations, while concurrently offering concrete skills that are transferable to practical settings."
Students are the future of their professions
Dr. Alysia Wright, PhD, assistant professor of social work in the Department of Child Studies and Social Work, says that HCE students were central to every part of the symposium. They participated directly in the training, gained an official certificate upon completion of the workshop and stepped into leadership roles as table facilitators, guiding small-group discussions and helping their peers apply the tool to real case examples.
"In addition, research assistants are working alongside faculty and the Palix Foundation on event evaluation designing surveys, analyzing data and contributing to knowledge mobilization. This layered approach ensures students are not just attendees but active partners in learning, facilitation and research," Wright says, while praising the "deliberately interprofessional" design of the Resilience Scale.
Students and faculty from various programs "learned side-by-side, reflecting real-world collaboration in health and community practice. With its mix of training, certification, case application and evaluation, the symposium went far beyond a typical workshop. It seeded curriculum integration and future research partnerships," Wright says.
Charlotte Prince is a third year student in the Bachelor of Child Studies program, with a major in early learning and child care and a minor in social innovation. As well as taking part in the symposium, she was also a volunteer student facilitator.
"A key takeaway from learning the Resilience Scale are the relatable metaphors and language that help bridge the gap in understanding between early learning professionals and the general public," Prince says. "Resilience is deeply connected to the way the brain develops, and this framing helps translate complex neuroscience into something families and communities can visualize and connect with."
Prince says she sees herself using the training in her future career to communicate the science of brain architecture in ways that empower parents and caregivers.
"This reinforces the shared responsibility we all have in building healthy brain architecture for young children," Prince says, emphasizing that building resilience is important for those in the fields of health, community and education, as their work involves emotional, relational and physical demands that require staying empathetic and responsive.
"Resilience development supports a trauma-informed approach to practice by helping professionals hold space for others' experiences without becoming overwhelmed, allowing them to remain compassionate and effective. It also enables professionals to adapt to systemic challenges, such as staffing shortages and policy changes, ultimately creating stable, nurturing environments that support individual and collective well-being," Prince says.
"Resilience doesn't develop in isolation. It's deeply shaped by social, economic and political contexts that influence the opportunities and supports available to individuals and communities," Prince says.
"When we view resilience only through an individual lens, we risk overlooking systemic inequities that impact people's capacity to bounce back.' By considering culture, environment and collective experience, we can better understand resilience as both a personal and social process, and ensure our approaches honour diverse ways of developing, coping, healing and thriving."
Being the green box
Harvey says that the objectives for the symposium align "beautifully" with the HCE Strategic Plan Ani to pisi (2030) vision of engaged learners that contribute to healthy, supportive communities.
"Enhancing collaboration, community and the impact to personal well-being relative to healthy workplaces are inherent in the learning experiences provided during the event," she says. We are grateful for this inaugural partnership with the Palix Foundation."
Those sentiments are echoed by Provost and Vice-President Academic Chad London, PhD, who said to the participants, "We know that, at the end of the day, better outcomes are achieved when diverse perspectives come together. When we truly collaborate as professionals. And you, as the next generation of professionals, whatever your program may be, you can be role models for those of us who have been around for awhile and maybe don't know how to work together professionally and collaboratively, because it hasn't always been a hallmark of our systems in health and human services. I think you have the opportunity to set an example."
McCallion agrees, saying, "Applying the Resilience Scale in practice and everyday life calls for flexibility, reflection and a willingness to meet complexity with curiosity and care. It encourages students to show up as mentors, coaches, counsellors, nurses, educators, and social workers, in meaningful and skillful ways. I think everyone in the room could identify themselves as a green box' for someone as they continue through their studies at MRU."
