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The link between growing up in difficult circumstances and experiencing problems later in life is so overwhelmingly strong that it is easy to overlook the fact that many people who encounter disadvantage go on to lead fulfilling and successful lives.

Yet for more than 20 years psychologists have been probing the issues surrounding resilience, the ability to "bounce back" from adversity. Their interest stems from observing that the relationship between disadvantage and later outcomes is in no sense deterministic. Many children who grow up in poverty, for example, do not go on to experience health, behavioural, learning or emotional problems. Intrigued by this finding, psychologists have spent many years exploring the characteristics that seem to help individuals to cope well in difficult circumstances.

But although resilience is now an established concept in psychology - and one that has filtered to a more limited extent into practice - few policymakers speak of building resilience.

This is surprising when you consider how such an approach would be in keeping with a social inclusion agenda. You would think that combining measures to improve individuals' capacity to deal with adversity with steps to tackle disadvantage would offer the kind of double-whammy irresistible to policymakers. What's more, the message that an escape from disadvantage rests as much on an individual's own capacity as their circumstances would seem to fit the government's views about rights and responsibilities.

But, contrary to what you might expect, resilience is not a concept that has shaped policy thinking in recent years. Indeed, as the focus on tackling disadvantage has increased, so has the tendency to cast individuals in difficult circumstances as vulnerable. There has been little room to consider individuals as possibly holding the key to their own success. Policymakers have paid little attention to the characteristics that seem to help people to thrive against the odds.

Why is this? Part of the answer seems to lie in the evidence that psychologists have unearthed about what builds resilience. While there appears to be no such thing as a resilient personality type, some characteristics emerge repeatedly in research. The presence of a strong relationship with a dependable caregiver,

self-confidence and self-esteem, a sense of optimism and control, the capacity to reflect and solve problems and clear aspirations have all been found to be important. And since research suggests that it is possible to trace coping characteristics from infancy, it seems that the foundations for resilience are likely to be laid early in life.

Children seem to be more likely to be resilient in the face of adversity when they develop certain social and emotional skills. And time and again research points to the influential role that a strong relationship between a child and a significant, caring adult can play, in most cases between a parent and child. This would suggest that policies that aim to support the parenting role are as important in terms of improving life chances as policies that seek to improve living standards.


Yet policymakers have felt more comfortable addressing living standards than supporting parenting. Parenting support is an area where policymakers have chosen to tread carefully, fearful of interfering in the private realm of the family other than in the most desperate of circumstances. Were policymakers willing to take seriously evidence on resilience they would need to be more willing to cross the threshold into the private world of the family. So far, only tentative and targeted steps towards augmenting parenting support have been taken.

Placing resilience at the heart of policymaking would also need an overall change in approach. Tracking children to target those most disadvantaged or "at risk" serves to reinforce the deterministic notion that disadvantage inevitably leads to failure. A policy programme to support resilience would seek to foster coping characteristics as much as protecting individuals from disadvantage.

Could the evidence on resilience ever be taken seriously by policymakers? There is a school of thought which asserts that the goal for public policy ought to centre on promoting well-being in society. The New Economics Foundation published a "well-being manifesto" aimed at encouraging policymakers to look beyond economic prosperity as the means of measuring the nation's health. Were a government to take this agenda seriously it might find that fostering resilience not only contributes towards improving wellbeing in society but helps to reduce disadvantage.

Lisa Harker is chair of the Daycare Trust