The Child and Youth Resilience Measure in an Adolescent Offender Population

Resilience theory holds potential to assist with risk assessment, risk management, and case formulation for adolescent offenders but its application is impeded due to a lack of tools designed specifically for this population. The Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM) was developed with multi-cultural, at-risk youth populations, has a broad resilience framework, and provides resilience scores on a wide variety of resilience domains in line with Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological model. In the present study, the CYRM demonstrated adequate psychometric properties (acceptable internal consistency, convergent, and discriminate validity) and specific subscales correlated negatively with concurrent depression/anxiety, reactive and relational aggression, and suicidal ideation. Further investigation is needed in examining the longitudinal applicability of the CYRM with youth offender populations and its utility in informing case management and intervention. At present, the CYRM appears to be psychometrically sound and it relates to various adverse outcomes associated with youth offenders.