Abstract

Ed. This book is available for purchase from the West Ed website. These two publications remain the most comprehensive, user-friendly summary of resilience research designed specifically for community based helping professionals. Benard continues to be the leading author bridging the gap between resilience research and practice. Resilience (updated 2004) When Bonnie Benard and I first met we were professional colleagues associated with the U. S. Department of Education's Safe and Drug Free Schools regional training centers. Bonnie was affiliated with the Western Center in Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California, and I was at the University of Minnesota representing the Midwest Regional based in Oakbrook, Illinois. One of my first memories was calling the Western Center and asking them to break their rules to send me copies of new publications by Bonnie Benard. They kept telling me they were not funded to send things out of their ten-state service area. I persisted and finally received the important documents. In time Bonnie and her colleagues came to Minnesota and conducted prevention trainings for my center. Eventually the National Resilience Resource Center was born. Over the years Bonnie's early publications have stuck in my mind. They were seminal; they were laboriously created to synthesize important research for lay prevention practitioners who were trying to find successful ways of reducing and eliminating youth substance abuse. Most of these professionals were tired and overwhelmed. They perked up when they began to hear Bonnie's positive, hopeful message about resilience. It was clearly a controversial and new message. We heard her talking about "youth at promise" rather than kids "at risk," about hope rather than resignation, about possibility rather than problems. She was part librarian and part social worker--a champion from the Midwest who lodged herself squarely in Berkeley and followed the research of the best and the brightest from a multitude of disciplines. Bonnie was a collector and conceptualizer who knew no boundaries. She searched, and read and wrote; then she spoke out. Bonnie was an advocate for youth. I remember her repeatedly saying how important it was to "speak truth to power." Sometimes it meant being the target of more established and degreed scientific experts' criticisms and agitation. More than anything I saw my friend and colleague squarely planting her feet on the sacred ground of ethical scholarship and social advocacy. Bonnie has never wavered from her position that we adults can and must do more for children, that there is a national agenda yet to be fully created and funded. Bonnie bridged the gap between the researchers and the prevention practitioners. In doing so she has lighted the dark corners and brought us a hopeful path. These publications are stepping stones in that path. There are newer publications that round out this discussion and strengthen the case of the national agenda of youth development grounded in resilience research. (See related "Resilience Research" to be posted on a related website in the near future.) Today Bonnie and I know about grey hair and more than occasionally spend time thinking about retirement and eventually passing the baton to new leaders. We deeply value the work we have shared for more than a decade and will continue into the next. We know important documents need to be passed on. We sense deep in our bones that systems change-the really big systems change from risk to resilience, from problems to possibilities-takes several generations and changes hearts as well as minds. From Bonnie's early works we know caring and support, opportunities for meaningful participation and encouraging high expectations change kids' lives. We also know that for adults to become caring and inviting and encouraging requires that they tap their own natural resilience and live in a secure state of mind. The research agenda of the next decades must explore such new avenues. The initial work that was been done by Bonnie Benard will serve us well in defining the foundation on which the new agenda can wisely be built. Please feel free to print these documents and disseminate to systems change agents without cost to them.