“if things aren't right for you, it's okay for you to walk away”: Exploring strategies for supporting resilience in early childhood

“Supporting Resilience” is a research project taking place in the state of Victoria, Australia. The study is a collaboration between university researchers and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, VicHealth (the state health promotion agency) and Community Connections (a statewide service provider NGO) and has been funded by the Australian Research Council. The study has followed three cohorts of resilient children and young people from disadvantaged areas through different transitions in their educational careers. This paper focuses on the early childhood cohort, where we are following children from kindergarten/pre-school into primary school. Using data gathered across the three years of the study, from interviews with parents and teachers and observation in preschools and primary schools, the paper explores the different strategies used by familes and schools to support children's resilience. We find that even those families who are experiencing complex and multiple challenges and disadvantages articulated strategies that they deliberately enacted in order to support their children's development, and that the concept of 'resilience' was one that they used and found useful. The paper focuses particularly on comparing strategies used in preschools with those used by families and examines the implications of this comparison for practice in the pre-school and primary school settings. We also explore contrasts between metropolitan and rural settings.