The International Resilience Project (IRP) is a multi-year international research study funded by the government of Canada and coordinated through Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Led by Michael Ungar, Professor at the School of Social Work, the purpose of the IRP is to develop a better, more culturally sensitive understanding of how youth around the world effectively cope with the adversities that they face. The IRP uses a unique cross-cultural approach that employs both quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine individual, interpersonal, family, community and cultural factors associated with building resilience in youth around the world. During the first 3-year phase of the research, the IRP piloted and integrated innovative quantitative and qualitative research methods and collected data from over 1500 children in 14 communities on five continents.

In the second phase of our project, we are undertaking a number of different qualitative and quantitative research initiatives. The combination of this qualitative and quantitative data furthers our investigation of the culturally and contextually varied ways resilience is understood as well as good outcomes achieved by children faced with adversities such as poverty, war, violence, drugs, the illness of a parent, family or community dislocation and cultural disintegration.

In this phase, we are employing visual methods, filming one full day in the life of young people living in a number of Canadian communities and overseas in Asia and Africa (Please see Day-in-the-life Visual Methodology). Through this research, we are working together with our community and academic partners to better understand and apply methods of culturally sensitive investigation with at-risk youth and families.

We also continue to collect data on the applicability of our research tools, both qualitative and quantitative, through partnerships with colleagues in countries around the world, as well as through our domestic work on the Pathways to Resilience Project.

Combined, this work aims to enhance our collaborators' capacities to apply the research findings, seeding action to make our research applicable to those who intervene and those who make policy.

We invite new partners to join us from around the world and have ensured that all our research tools are available upon request.


Goals

The International Resilience Project aims to develop research methods appropriate to the study of health related phenomena in at-risk child and youth populations in different cultural contexts. The project also attempts to address the arbitrariness in the selection of outcome variables that are chosen to study resilient youth.


Methods and Research Tools

To access detailed information about the mixed-methods research design developed during Phase One of the International Resilience Project, please see the IRP Research Manual. The qualitative and quantitative measures can be accessed by clicking the respective links. For full access to the measures, you will need to contact rrc@dal.ca for the password.


International Perspectives on Resilience

Watch the video to find out our partners' and colleagues' perspectives on resilience.