What is resilience?
Resilience is the awareness and power of a person, family, organization or community to find, use and create resources to heal.
Resilience is not about “bouncing back,” but rather ”bouncing forward” to address the root causes of stress, trauma and violence so that Chicago communities can be stronger than before.
Resilient Communities
- Realize many of us have experienced stress
- Promote violence prevention, healing and resilience
- Proactively avoid contributing to stress and retraumatizing
How do you build community resilience?
- Promote healing through community sharing and establishing resiliency approaches
- Create awareness and lift up the things that promote health and the vitality of a community
- Create equitable access to wellness resources for everyone, anywhere
Strategies for Building Resilience in Communities
Individual
- Realize many of us have experienced stress
- Promote violence prevention, healing and resilience
- Proactively avoid contributing to stress and retraumatizing
Interpersonal
- Model healthy, resilient conduct and activities that encourage shared positive experiences
- Support resident-to-resident activities and interactions
Community
- Participate in visible, tangible activities that reflect community change
- Nurture community leadership through support and liberation
System
- Reflect community voices and priorities
- Build long-term investments in the community
What is resilience?

Take the Youth Resilience Survey
Created by youth for youth!
What is resilience? Resilience is the awareness and power of a person, family, organization, or community to find, use, and create resources to recover from challenges and generate positive change.
Why take this survey? We want to understand young people’s thoughts about and experiences of community resilience so that we can help to improve the community.
By taking this survey, you are making your voice heard and creating positive change within your community. Additionally, this survey helps facilitate individual thinking about resiliency and how ReCAST can best work within your community.