Risky or resilient? Mental health for children, young people and families

This paper explores the notions of risk and resilience in relation to young people often regarded as 'vulnerable'. The paper explores how young people become positioned as 'vulnerable' to mental health difficulty, and what the implications of this designation as 'risky' might be. The paper considers critically the notion of resilience as a set of individual character traits and attempts to consider how this might be constituted in social interactions. The paper concludes that it is crucially important, when thinking about fostering positive mental health in young people, to consider how we might help them understand the social underpinnings of distress. It is only when this is understood that children and young people can be supported to be 'resilient'