An upcoming fast-paced and story-filled public lecture on Oct. 5 will explore what resilience means to children from many different backgrounds.

Dr. Michael Ungar, a Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience, and a family therapist and professor of social work at Dalhousie University, will also provide nine practical, evidence-informed strategies parents, caregivers and educators can use to help children heal, no matter a child’s emotional, psychological or behavioural problems.

Working together

“Children’s resilience is much more than their individual ability to overcome adversity,” said Dr. Ungar. “It is just as much the result of how well their families, schools and communities work together to help vulnerable young people navigate their way to the resources they need for well-being, and whether those resources are made available to children in ways children experience as meaningful.”

Dr. Ungar’s research on resilience around the world and across cultures has made him one of the best-known scholars in the field.

He has authored 17 books for parents, educators, mental health professionals, and employers, including Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success, a book for adults experiencing stress at work and at home, and Working with Children and Youth with Complex Needs: 20 Skills to Build Resilience, a book for mental health professionals.

His academic texts explore research in the area of resilience and include the 2021 edited volume, Multisystemic Resilience: Adaptation and Transformation in Contexts of Change.

A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Dr. Ungar is also a former executive board member of the American Family Therapy Academy and a recipient of the Canadian Association of Social Workers National Distinguished Service Award. His blog, Nurturing Resilience, can be read on Psychology Today’s website.

Everyone welcome

His public lecture, titled Nurturing Resilience: Nine Ways Families, Schools and Communities Can Help Children Thrive, takes place Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. in Memorial University’s Bruneau Centre for Research and Innovation, room IIC-2001.

A reception will follow; limited free parking is available in lot 17.

The Dr. Patricia Canning Memorial Lecture in Child Health and Development was established through generous gifts from the family and friends of the late Dr. Patricia Canning, a child psychologist, educator and researcher at Memorial University.