Building Resiliency

Resiliency is a person's ability to face life's challenges with determination and hope. In a resiliency-oriented mental health system, we believe:

• All children, youth and families have strengths and are capable of overcoming challenges.
• All children have the right to hope and success starting at birth and lasting a lifetime.
• All communities and systems have a responsibility and make a commitment to nurture resiliency with all children.
• Youth and families are experts in their experiences.
• Youth and families have voice and choice in services and supports.
• The system is sensitive to culture, community and values of the individual youth and family.
• Services and supports are individualized, flexibly delivered and tailored to meet the unique needs of the youth and family.
• The system is affirming of youth and family with unconditional acceptance.
• Supports and services focus on promoting resiliency, while reducing risks and stabilizing symptoms.
• The system provides access to a complete continuum of care that addresses mental health promotion, education and intervention across developmental ages and stages.
• The system invests in our youth as our most valuable resources.
• Efforts to implement a resiliency-oriented mental health system need to be embedded in a community structure that supports them and sustains their effects.

(Source: Resilience Vision and Principals document at the Center for Innovative Practices)

The Ohio Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) seeks to support local mental health systems that foster resiliency at all levels, including mental health promotion, prevention and intervention, with the ultimate outcome of resilient people, families and communities. Read the OhioMHAS Consensus Statement on Children’s Mental Health Resiliency and view a Mental Health Resiliency Pyramid to demonstrate how the process works.