Life skills that enable resilience: a profile of adolescents from a coloured community in Kimberley

[摘要] English: Adolescent development is synonymous with physical and emotionalchanges and challenges. This development has previously been termedstorm and stress to further illustrate these turmoils that adolescentsexperience. Adolescents generally growing up in a coloured communityfurther experience hardships such as gangsterism, unemployment,overcrowding and substance abuse.The implementation of life skills could be seen as a way to possiblyreduce engagement in risky behaviour and effectively face adversity.Life skills include an unlimited list of complex and integrated skills andassist in the participation of meaningful occupations. The mainoccupation of an adolescent is that of a learner. Within schools, life skillsare part of the form of Life Orientation. Life Orientation includessubjects such as vocational guidance, religion and physical educationand it addresses the most crucial life skills. Not only can life skills assistwith positive adaptive behaviour amongst adolescents, but supportiveenvironments also contribute to resilient behaviour. Resilience is beingable to bounce back from challenges. Adolescents engaging in riskybehaviour, having poor to little knowledge of life skills, not applying theirlife skills and negative environmental factors all influence their ability tobe resilient.The researcher undertook this study to establish a profile of colouredadolescents and their knowledge and application of life skills that lead toresilient behavior. This was a descriptive study involving a conveniencesampling method. The study took place at four predominantly colouredschools in Kimberley in the Northern Cape. Three hundred and fortyeight (348) learners returned signed permission letters that allowedthem to complete the questionnaire.The sample comprised of both males and females aged 16 to 18 years.Grade 12 learners were in the minority, while there were mostly grade11 learners (45.4%) that participated in the study. Learners mostlycame from coloured suburbs with 26.4% of learners coming from othersuburbs within Kimberley.The profile of coloured adolescents presented with learners possessingknowledge and/or application of different life skills. Learners presentedwith better knowledge of life skills within communication skills (90.3%),time management (72.8%) and values (89.9%). When expected toapply life skills, problem-solving skills (90.9%) and values (81.1%) wereapplied best. Learners applied time management and decision makingpoorly of all life skills. The researcher further noted that application ofcommunication skills and time management (whether high or low) weredirectly related to resilience. Knowledge of the other life skills (whetherhigh or low) were related to resilience. The only exception was withinvalues, where knowledge and application were both directly related toresilience.Only small numbers of learners engaged in risky behaviour in the formof drinking alcohol mostly. Risky behaviour is considered a negativeinfluence on life skills. Learners portrayed hope, optimism andcompetence within individual environmental factors. However learnersfrom the lower socio-economic backgrounds presented with less hope(70.7%) compared to other suburbs (84.2%). Within family factorssecurity, stability and support were prominent factors and had a positiveinfluence on life skills leading to resilience. Peer acceptance wasimportant for most learners (95.4%).To conclude the researcher will use findings to develop community andschool programmes that could assist in the implementation of life skillsthat would serve to support and empower adolescents. The importantrole that the occupational therapist could play in adolescentdevelopment is to ensure optimal engagement in occupations throughlife skills in order to develop as healthy adults.

[发布机构] University of the Free State