Resilience is an important aspect of mental well-being. Tatyana Barankin and Nazilla Khanlou draw from the latest research and theoretical developments on resilience in children and youth and present it in a way that is relevant for a diverse audience, including parents, educators, health care providers, daycare workers, coaches, social service providers, policy makers and others. Among the unique contributions of this book is that the authors consider the development of resilience at three levels. Growing Up Resilient explores the individual, family and environmental risk and protective factors that affect young people’s resilience:

• individual factors: temperament, learning strengths, feelings and emotions, self-concept, ways of thinking, adaptive skills, social skills and physical health
• family factors: attachment, communication, family structure, parent relations, parenting style, sibling relations, parents’ health and support outside the family
• environmental factors: inclusion (gender, culture), social conditions (socio-economic situation, media influences), access (education, health) and involvement.

Tips on how to build resilience in children and youth follow each section.

The ability for children and youth to bounce back from today’s stresses is one of the best life skills they can develop. Growing Up Resilient is a must-read for adults who want to increase resilience in the children and youth in their lives.

Tatyana Barankin, MD, is a staff psychiatrist in the Child, Youth and Family Program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and staff psychiatrist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. She is an associate professor and Head of Continuing Medical Education, Child and Adolescent Division, in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Barankin graduated from medical school in St. Petersburg, Russia (formerly Leningrad, Soviet Union) and then specialized in pediatrics. She completed her psychiatric training at the University of Toronto, sub-specializing in child psychiatry. Her main areas of work include mood and anxiety disorders across the life spectrum, school psychiatry, preventive interventions in populations at risk, and gender and cultural aspects of mental health problems. Dr. Barankin teaches medical students, residents and community physicians in the Child, Youth and Family Program at CAMH. She has also been a consultant to community agencies, the Toronto District School Board and French boards of education. Dr. Barankin has won numerous awards for her leadership and knowledge dissemination in Continuing Medical Education and was quoted as an opinion leader in Time magazine. To balance her professional life, she devotes time to her family and friends, and to her hobbies, music and art.

Tatyana Barankin's profile page

Nazilla Khanlou, RN, PhD is an associate professor at the Faculty of Nursing and Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Dr. Khanlou’s research is in mental health promotion, with a focus on youth and women in multicultural and urban settings where immigrants settle, and on youth self-concept, particularly as it relates to cultural identity and self-esteem; gendered post-migration resettlement experiences; and participatory mental health promotion.

Nazilla Khanlou's profile page