Resilient Youth in Stressed Environments (RYSE)

The original RYSE study was conceptualized as an investigation of the multisystemic sources of youth resilience for youth living in Canadian and South African communities challenged by an extraction industry (specifically, the oil and gas industry). RYSE is a five-year study (April 2017 to April 2022) funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The principal investigator is Dr. Michael Ungar, Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience and Director, Resilience Research Centre, Dalhousie University. The co-principal investigator is Dr. Linda Theron, Full Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria and Associate of the Centre for the Study of Resilience. Information about the full research team and the research sites is available at www.ryseproject.org

The RYSE-RuSA study builds on the RYSE study. It adds a second South African research site (another community challenged by the oil and gas industry) and four Russian sites that exemplify stressed environments. This three-year study (2019-2021) is funded by National Research Foundation, South Africa (SA (NRF) / Russia (RFBR) Joint Science and Technology Research Collaboration. The South African principal investigator is Dr. Linda Theron, Full Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria, and Associate of the Centre for the Study of Resilience. The Russian principal investigator is Dr. Alexander Makhnach, Rector of the Institute of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Moscow, and Senior Researcher, Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Information about the full research team and the research sites is available at www.ryseproject.org

Alexander Makhnach, Linda Theron, & Michael Ungar

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and related psychosocial challenges, a sub-sample of RYSE participants was engaged in the 2020 study titled ‘Youth Resilience in the face of C-19’. It was funded by Leicester University and led by Dr Diane Levine (Deputy Director, Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies, UK) and Dr. Linda Theron (Full Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria and Associate of the Centre for the Study of Resilience). Dr Michael Ungar (Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience and Director, Resilience Research Centre, Dalhousie University) and Dr Gavin Brown (Professor of Political Geography & Sexualities, University of Leicester) were co-applicants. This study trialled the digital methodology that is informing a 2021-2022 study titled ‘Positive adaptation to compound risk: Learning about mental health resilience from African emerging adults’. It also engages a sub-sample of RYSE participants, is funded by the British Academy, and led by Dr Diane Levine (Deputy Director, Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies, UK) and Dr. Linda Theron (Full Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria and Associate of the Centre for the Study of Resilience). Dr Michael Ungar (Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience and Director, Resilience Research Centre, Dalhousie University) and Dr Sadiyya Haffejee (Senior Researcher, Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg) are co-applicants.

The RYSE study is also being replicated with a sample (n = 350) of emerging adults who were/are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and reside in disadvantaged communities in or around Pretoria. The specific aim is to better understand the multisystemic sources of these young people’s resilience. In South Africa, this 12-month study (starting 1 April 2021) has been funded by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. It has a sister-study in India (n = 350; funder: ICSSR). The research team is as follows: Prof Linda Theron (PI), Prof Anna Narayanan (Co-PI; Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India), Prof Kate Cockcroft (WITS), Prof Ansie Fouche (NWU) and Dr. Michael Ungar (Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience and Director, Resilience Research Centre, Dalhousie University)

Dr. Michael Ungar

Dr. Michael Ungar, PhD, is a Family Therapist and Professor of Social Work at Dalhousie University (located in Halifax, Canada) where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience. With over $12M in funded research, Dr. Ungar’s clinical work and research spans more than a dozen low, middle, and high-income countries, with much of that work focused on the resilience of children, families, and adult populations experiencing mental health challenges, as well as stressed communities, especially those experiencing economic and social instability. Most recently, he acts as the Nominated Principal Investigator of the ground-breaking RYSE project (2018-2022), a $2M study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to understand the biopsychosocial-ecological resilience of young people in communities impacted by the oil and gas industry in Canada and South Africa. Dr. Ungar has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the subject of resilience and is the author of 16 books for mental health professionals, researchers and parents, the most recent being Multisystemic Resilience: Adaptation and Transformation in Contexts of Change.

Dr. Diane Levine

Dr. Diane Levine, PhD, is Deputy Director of the Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies. Dr. Levine completed an ESRC-funded PhD at the University of Warwick in 2015, following a career as a teacher, programme manager, and senior manager in the Civil Service. She brings significant impact, monitoring and evaluation experience to the project, alongside a keen interest in interdisciplinary methods and systems. Dr. Levine has a particular interest in interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the ways in which children and adolescents living with structural disadvantage survive and thrive in a digital world. She has been funded to deliver research on these themes by the British Academy, Global Challenges Research Fund, the Newton Fund, eNurture Network, Horizon 2020, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is co-author of Oxford University Press’ best-selling textbooks on computing for 4-14 year-olds, and acts as a member of the Editorial Board for Child Abuse and Neglect.

Related publications:

1. Murphy, K., Strand, L., Theron, L., & Ungar, M. (2021). “I just gotta have tough skin”: Women's experiences working in the oil and gas industry in Canada. The Extractive Industries and Society. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214790X21000277
2. Theron, L.C. (2020). Resilience of sub-Saharan children and adolescents: A scoping review. Transcultural Psychiatry, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1363461520938916
3. Theron, L.C., Levine, D., & Ungar, M. (2020). African emerging adult resilience: Insights from a sample of township youth. Emerging Adulthood, https://doi.org/10.1177/2167696820940077
4. Höltge, J., Theron, L., Cowden, R.G., Govender, K., A., van Rensburg, &  Ungar, M. (2021). Exploring the interrelations between systems of support in 13- to 18-year-old adolescents: A network analysis of resilience promoting systems in a high and middle-income country. Child Development, 92(2), 586-599. https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.13483
5. Höltge, J., Theron, L., Cowden, R.G., Govender, K., Maximo, S., Carranza, J.S., Kapoor, B., Tomar, A., van Rensburg, A., Lu, S., Hu, H., Cavioni, V., Agliati, A.,  Grazzani, I., Smedema, Y., Kaur,  G., Hurlington, K.G.,  Sanders, J., Munford, R., Colomeischi, A., Panter-Brick, C., Sarathamani, S., Boratne, A.V.,  Avudaiappan, S., Patil, R., Borualogo, I., Katisi, M., Jefferies, P., &  Ungar, M. (2021). A cross-country network analysis of adolescent resilience. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68, 580—588. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.07.010
6. Höltge, J., Ungar, M., & Theron, L., (2021). The differential interplay of home routines and comforting beliefs on adolescent mental health in situations of severe parental conflict. Adversity and Resilience Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42844-021-00029-7
7. Theron, L. C., Abreu-Villaça, Y., Augusto-Oliveira, M., Brennan, C. H., Crespo-Lopez, M. E., de Paula Arrifano, G., ... & Hadfield, K. (2021). Effects of pollution on adolescent mental health: A systematic review protocol. Systematic Reviews, 10(1), 1-7. https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s13643-021-01639-z.pdf
8. Ungar, M., Theron, L., Murphy, K., & Jefferies, P. (2021). Researching multisystemic resilience: A sample methodology. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 3808. https://doi/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.607994
9. Fouché, A., Fouché, F.D., & Theron, L.C. (2020). Child protection and resilience in the face of COVID-19 in South Africa: A rapid review of C-19 legislation. Child Abuse & Neglect,  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104710
10. Mahdiani, H., Höltge, J., Theron, L., & Ungar, M. (2020). Resilience in times of economic boom and bust: A narrative study of a rural population dependent upon the oil and gas industry. Journal of Adult Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-020-09363-z
11. Theron, L.C. (2020). Adolescent versus adult explanations of resilience enablers: A South African study. Youth & Society, 52(1) 78–98. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0044118X17731032.
12. Theron, L.C. & van Rensburg, A. (2020). Parent-figures and adolescent resilience: An African perspective. International Journal of School & Educational Psychology, 8(2), 90-103, https://doi.org/10.1080/21683603.2019.1657994
13. Twum-Antwi, A., Jefferies, P., Theron, L., Schnurr, M., & Ungar, M. (2020). Young people’s perceptions of identities in a rural oil and gas town experiencing boom-bust economic cycles. Journal of Applied Youth Studies, 3, 275–292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43151-020-00020-6
14. Ungar, M., & Theron, L. (2020). Resilience and mental health: How multisystemic processes contribute to positive outcomes. Lancet Psychiatry, 7, 441–48.  https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(19)30434-1
15. Ungar, M., McRuer, J., Liu, X., Theron, L., Blais, D., & Schnurr, M.A. (2020). Social-ecological resilience through a biocultural lens: A participatory methodology to support global targets and local priorities. Ecology and Society, 25(3):8. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11621-250308