Research, Advocacy, and Social Policy: Lessons from the Risk and Resilience Model

Empirically based social policy for children, youths, and families is an oft-heralded but elusive goal in the social sciences. In many substantive areas, policy is based on short-term behavioral, social, and economic trends or events rather than on empirical evidence about the onset, causes, or efficacious interventions associated with particular problems. In some cases, this pattern has led to ill-conceived and fragmented policy approaches that produce deleterious and unintended consequences for children, youths, and families (Jenson & Fraser, 2006). Many scholars recognize that stronger links between researchers and advocates are necessary to develop empirically based social policy (for example, Aber, Bishop-Josef, Jones, McLearn, & Phillips, 2006). Unfortunately, empirical evidence is often not conveyed systematically by many policy advocacy experts. In some settings, this may occur because evidence simply fails to reach advocacy groups who are in a position to influence social policy. In other instances, the failure to communicate research findings to policy advocates may be attributed to a disinterest on the part of investigators. Finally, empirical evidence that is disseminated for use by advocacy groups is frequently conveyed in a manner that makes little sense to public officials. Similarly, the application of research findings to social policy directives has also been hindered by a lack of conceptual frameworks to aid investigators and policymakers in translating empirical evidence into information that is useful in policy debates. Succinct and coherent conceptual models are needed to convey research findings to elected officials in a manner that is easy to understand and digest. One emergent model that may be effective in translating empirical evidence to social policy decisions affecting children, youths, and families is the risk and resilience framework. SOCIAL POLICY FROM A RISK AND RESILIENCE PERSPECTIVE The risk and resilience framework emerged in the mid-1980s as an effective way to understand and prevent childhood and youth problems such as school failure, delinquency, and substance abuse (Hawkins, Jenson, Catalano, & Lishner, 1988). A guiding principle of the risk and resilience model is that empirical evidence--generally identified as correlates of particular problem behaviors--is used to inform the design and selection of social interventions aimed at these problems (Fraser, 2004).The origins of the risk and resilience model can be traced to public health efforts to reduce heart disease and other adverse conditions. In the 1970s, health officials launched a massive public campaign to reduce the risks associated with the onset of heart disease. Subsequently, risk factors such as smoking, lack of exercise, and poor dietary practices became intervention targets in a sustained effort to reduce the incidence of heart disease in the country. In time, health advocacy groups began to use the concept of risk effectively in public announcements and in policy directives aimed at elected officials. Lessons gained from such applications in public health spread quickly to social work, psychology, and other disciplines. By the 1990s, a series of investigations revealed a common set of risk factors for problems such as substance abuse, delinquency, and violence (for example, Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Jenson & Howard, 1999). In recent years the approach has been expanded to include the positive influence of protective factors--characteristics that reduce or buffer exposure to risk--on child and youth behavior (Fraser, Richman, & Galinsky, 1999; Rutter, 2001). Resilience, characterized as one's ability to thrive in the face of overwhelming adversity, has also been acknowledged as an important component of risk-based models (Luthar, 2003). Knowledge of risk, protection, and resilience has been used to inform curriculum content and intervention strategies aimed at preventing and treating a range of childhood and adolescent problem behaviors (Hawkins, 2006; Jenson, 2006). …