SW 3107 Week 1 NOTES

Below is a list of source that you can read. You can also read any sources on
risk and resilience to understand this course. Google scholar, Google and NUL
website and other online links can be useful. If you encounter problems let
me know. So read on the risk factors provided below and beef-up the notes.

Defining

Risk: The probability that a specific action or exposure will give rise to a negative health
outcome. For example, having sex without a condom may lead to becoming pregnant or
acquiring a sexually transmitted infection, including HIV. Risk can be exposure to either one
challenging event, or is the result of on-going cumulative adversity that reduces resistance to
stressors (Hunter, 2012a).

Risk factors: Individual attributes or characteristics of the physical and social environment

that increase the likelihood that an adolescent will engage in potentially harmful behaviours
(or example, negative attitudes among peers about condom use is a risk factor for unprotected
sex) or suffer negative health outcomes (for example, poor infrastructure for pedestrian safety
is a risk factor for road traffic injuries).

At risk: Adolescents described as “at risk” are those who live, learn and develop in
conditions that contribute or predispose to poor health (for example, poverty and
discrimination) or who engage in behaviours that increase the likelihood of negative health
outcomes (for example, injecting drugs using unclean needles and syringes).

Risk exposures: Things that happen to an adolescent that may have negative impacts on
health and are outside of his/her control—physical or psychological abuse.

Individual risk factors include:

 Alienation, isolation, and lack of social bonding

 Favourable attitudes toward tobacco, alcohol or other drugs, and
delinquency
 Early initiation of tobacco, alcohol, or other drug abuse or early onset of
violent behaviour
 Early and persistent antisocial behaviour, such as aggressive behaviour
 Academic failure

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  Lack of commitment to school

Peer and Social Risk Factors include:

 Friends who abuse tobacco, alcohol, or other drugs

 Friends who engage in violence
 Association with delinquent peers
 Involvement in gangs
 Social rejection by peers
 Lack of involvement in conventional activities
 Low commitment to school and school failure/ Poor academic
performance.

Family risk factors include:

Family history of smoking, the abuse of alcohol or other drugs, or

violence
Favourable parental attitudes toward the abuse of tobacco, alcohol or
other drugs, or violence
Family management problems, such as:
 a lack of clear expectations for behaviour,
 failure of parents to monitor their children,
 excessively severe or inconsistent punishment or Harsh, lax, or
inconsistent disciplinary practices
Family conflict

School risk factors include:

 Harsh or arbitrary student management practices, such as a lack of shared

norms for behaviour, and inconsistent or poorly articulated expectations
for learning and behaviour
 Availability of tobacco, alcohol or other drugs, or weapons on school
premises
 Delinquent peer culture, such as friends or peers who are involved in
criminal activity
 Ineffective administrative leadership
 Little emotional and social support of students
 Violence in schools

Community risk factors include:

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 o Availability of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs
o Availability of firearms
o Community norms that favour substance abuse, firearms, and crime
o Community disorganization
o Poverty or diminished economic opportunities
o High concentrations of poor residents
o High level of transiency
o High level of family disruption
o Low levels of community participation
o Socially disorganized neighbourhoods
Chui, H., Hay, E. L., & Diehl, M. (2012). Personal risk and resilience factors in the context of
daily stress. Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 32(1), 251-274.

Hunter, C. (2012b). Is resilience still a useful concept when working with children and young
people? Journal of the Home Economics Institute of Australia, 19(1), 45.
Huver, R. M. E., Otten, R., De Vries, H., & Engels, R. C. M. E. (2010). Personality and
parenting style in parents of adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 33(3), 395-402.
Jefferis, T. C., & Theron, L. C. (2017). Promoting resilience among Sesotho-speaking
adolescent girls: Lessons for South African teachers. South African Journal of
Education, 37(3).
Masten, A. S., & Garmezy, N. (1985). Risk, vulnerability, and protective factors in
developmental psychopathology Advances in clinical child psychology (pp. 1-52):
Springer.
Schofield, G., & Beek, M. (2005). Risk and resilience in long-term foster-care. British
Journal of Social Work, 35, 1283–1301.
Velleman, R., & Orford, J. (1999). Risk and Resilience: adults who were the children of
problem drinkers: Harwood Academic Press