THE IMPACT OF YOUTH-ADULT RELATIONSHIPS ON RESILIENCE

Distinguishing between population-wide strengths and processes associated with youth resilience, this paper shows that engaging and transformative youth-adult relationships exert the greatest impact on youth who are the most marginalized. This pattern of differential impact demonstrates that the factors that contribute to resilience, such as engagement, are contextually sensitive. For youth with the fewest resources, engagement may influence their life trajectories more than for youth with greater access to supports. Case material and research that shows the link between resilience and engagement of youth with adults is discussed as a way to show that resilience is not an individual quality, but instead a quality of the interaction between individuals and their environments. The benefits of youth-adult partnerships are realized for marginalized youth when specific conditions that promote interactions that contribute to resilience are created.