When children thrive in spite of experiencing adversity, they are called resilient. Finding a way to assess resilience using administrative data at the whole population level at low cost and minimal intervention was appealing.
Qualities contributing to resilience include physical and mental health, functioning in society, and healthy development in childhood. The purpose of this study was to identify variables that are associated with healthy childhood development after exposure to household challenge adverse childhood experiences using administrative health, education and social data. The objectives were to describe the developmental outcomes of children exposed to adversities, to identify factors that are associated with healthy development after exposure to adversity, and to examine the identified factors in the context of a resilience framework. A cohort of children born in Manitoba between 2000-2012 was created. Children exposed to household challenge adverse childhood experiences were compared to unexposed children. Using the Early Development Instrument, children’s development was assessed on five domains at school entry. Children who met expectations in each domain despite exposure to adversity were considered resilient. Using regression models, variables that connected to sub-constructs of resilience were evaluated to determine if any were associated with resilience. Exploratory factor analysis determined whether factors that emerged mapped onto constructs of resilience previously defined in the literature.
Children who were exposed to household challenge adverse childhood experiences had poorer developmental outcomes compared to their unexposed peers. Several individual-, family-, and community-level factors were associated with resilience including sex, age, being first-born, health, team parenting, parent education, not being a newcomer, residential stability, neighbourhood SES, and regular contact with the health system. These factors clustered into 7 latent factors: family structure, health, parenting capacity, socio-economic status, optimal childhood health care, support seeking, and supported parenting. A major benefit of this study was the establishment of a cohort of children with household challenge adverse childhood experiences, supporting future research into health, educational, and social outcomes related to childhood adversity. This strengths-based study allows for the use of resilience as an outcome measure in policy evaluation requiring little intervention, no primary data collection, and reduced time and cost.