Abstract
Dear readers, I am pleased to introduce this 6th issue of the International Journal of Child and Adolescent Resilience (IJCAR), or as we now call it in its bilingual version, la Revue Internationale de la résilience des enfants et adolescents (RIREA).
With pleasure, I took on the role of Acting Editor-in-chief of IJCAR / RIREA over the last year to replace Tara Black who was on maternity leave. I took advantage of this interim to initiate several changes to the Journal, including making it officially bilingual and transfer hosting to the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) in collaboration with ÉRUDIT and Coalition Publi.ca, which will ensure its dissemination. The Open Journal System submission platform will remain the same, allowing us to maintain open access publishing without cost to authors. These changes are underway and you will see them come to fruition over the next few months as the Journal officially changes sites and editors. Indeed, it is with great pleasure that IJCAR / RIREA welcomes its new Editor-in-chief, Martine Hébert, Professor in the Department of Sexology at the Université du Québec à Montréal and Canada Research Chair in Interpersonal Trauma and resilience, which will oversee activities for the next four years.
I will continue to be involved in the Journal as co-editor and would like to see it grow and develop into new horizons and new themes. Another novelty started this year will see IJCAR / RIREA focus on annual thematic issues. The first of these issues, arising from the 3rd Annual Complex Trauma Symposium, will focus on resilience in the context of complex trauma (see the call for submissions below). With her expertise in research on the resilience of children and adolescents, her international recognition and influence and her scientific rigor, Dr. Hébert is well suited as Editor-in-chief and will promote IJCAR / RIREA internationally and especially within the Francophonie.
Finally, for this regular 2019 issue, six articles on different aspects of resilience are published and demonstrate the wealth of work in this area. Liebenberg and Joubert (pp. 4-14) will discuss resilience indicators and, in particular, how the meaning assigned to them affects resources interactively. Moisan, Hébert, Fernet, Blais, and Amédée (pp 15-31) will present the results of a study using the resilience portfolios and the concept of polystrenghts, stressing the importance of taking these forces into account in the evaluation of young people exposed to traumatic experiences. Fallon, Kartusch, Filippelli, Trocme, Black, Chan, Sawh, and Carnella (pp. 32-40) will provide a brief report of the answers to the 10 questions any protection center should be aware of in order to serve its population well. Cash (pp. 41-47) will discuss how technologies can facilitate research and intervention in the area of abuse to promote resilience. Strickland, Wekerle, Kehayes, Thompson, Dobson, and Stewart (pp. 48-65) will address the issue of self-compassion as promoting resilience in sexually assaulted youth when alcohol is involved. And finally, Alaggia, Morton and Vine (pp. 66-82) will present the guiding principles for the transfer and use of knowledge from the Make Resilience Matter project according to the conceptual model of the Research Contribution Framework.
I take this opportunity to thank Christine Wekerle, Tara Black and Martine Hébert for their essential support during this interim, Marlyn Bennett and Ihssane Fethi for the manuscripts’ copyediting and Author guidelines’ update, Alexandre Masino for the image of one of his paintings on the cover that illustrates so evocatively what resilience may be, the editorial team that contributed to the revision of manuscripts and the authors for their patience with the publication deadlines of this issue. On that, enjoy your reading!