Collectively Cultivating Resilience: The Role of Agency and Community at a Children’s Emergency Shelter

ABSTRACT

This study examines the communicative construction of resilience at a children’s emergency shelter. Prior research suggests that resilience is dependent upon social construction processes, wherein communication creates and sustains the resources individuals may draw upon in order to adapt following a difficult experience. This project adds to existing literature on resilience by considering the role of organizational culture in fostering resilient clients and employees. Through an ethnographic account of a children’s shelter named Sunshine Place, this study analyzes how staff and volunteers collectively foster resilience in children who have experienced trauma. The findings indicate that Sunshine Place emphasizes individual agency and “good” community membership as tools by which residents can become more resilient.

Keywords:

• resilience
• agency
• community building
• human service organizations