Uncertain Legacies: Resilience and Institutional Child Abuse - A Literature Review - Research Findings

Introduction

In 2009, a Pilot Forum Time to be Heard was set up to hear evidence from adults who had been looked after in Quarriers children's homes at various times between the 1930s and the 1980s. The Forum recorded the testimonies of ninety eight individuals, some of whom had experienced abuse while resident in the homes, and provided a means publicly to acknowledge the distress and suffering they had endured. The Report on Time to Be Heard: A Pilot Forum (Scottish Government 2011) reflects different recovery experiences among survivors of child abuse in Quarriers, and this is consistent with the wider literature relating to other forms of childhood abuse: for some the negative impacts are felt long into adulthood, while others seem more able to flourish despite suffering similarly traumatic experiences at a young age. One possible explanation for these different experiences is that a combination of personal circumstances, available relationships, community resources, and environmental factors combine at a particular time to increase an individual's ability to overcome adversity more effectively: that is, their resilience. The report on Time to be Heard recommended that further research should be carried out to identify factors which seemed to increase resilience in some survivors.

This literature review attempted to respond to that recommendation. It aimed to review the existing academic literature in order to identify definitions of resilience, the factors that are associated with resilience, and how this knowledge might contribute to our understanding of adult survivors of childhood abuse while in residential care. The study drew on literature published between 1990 and 2011 across a range of disciplines. Despite an absence of material which discussed the concept of resilience in relation to adult survivors of abuse in institutional care, resilience might provide a useful means of understanding the different recovery experiences of survivors of this form of abuse, and prove useful in developing effective support mechanisms in the future.