Adolescents obviously do not always act in ways that serve their own best interests, even as defined by them. Sometimes their perception of their own risks, even of survival to adulthood, is larger than the reality; in other cases, they underestimate the risks of particular actions or behaviors. It is possible, indeed likely, that some adolescents engage in risky behaviors because of a perception of invulnerabilityâ€"the current conventional wisdom of adults' views of adolescent behavior. Others, however, take risks because they feel vulnerable to a point approaching hopelessness. In either case, these perceptions can prompt adolescents to make poor decisions that can put them at risk and leave them vulnerable to physical or psychological harm that may have a negative impact on their long-term health and viability. A small planning group was formed to develop a workshop on reconceptualizing adolescent risk and vulnerability. With funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Workshop on Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability: Setting Priorities took place on March 13, 2001, in Washington, DC. The workshop's goal was to put into perspective the total burden of vulnerability that adolescents face, taking advantage of the growing societal concern for adolescents, the need to set priorities for meeting adolescents' needs, and the opportunity to apply decision-making perspectives to this critical area. This report summarizes the workshop.

The notion of vulnerability is critical to person-centred and high-quality nursing and healthcare practice, and underpins all nursing education. Understanding Vulnerability: a Nursing and Healthcare Approach focuses on vulnerability experienced every day by patients and clients in healthcare, and provides clear and supportive guidance to nurses and other healthcare practitioners on protecting and caring for vulnerable patients. Taking a fresh, critical and reflective perspective that reflects current trends towards the promotion of equality and acknowledges everyone’s vulnerability, this book is essential reading for all nursing and healthcare students, as well as healthcare practitioners who are committed to providing person-centred care. Special features: •One of the first books to address the issue of vulnerability from a nursing and healthcare perspective •Written by a group of experienced professionals, academics and educationalists with both educational and research expertise in the exploration of vulnerability •Includes narratives, perspectives and case studies, illustrating and bringing to life the issues within the book

This book offers an accessible and evidence-based approach for professional staff to improve their interactions with vulnerable people. Drawing upon contemporary research from a broad array of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, economics, biology and the neurosciences, it demonstrates how vulnerability and resilience are not fixed personality traits, as is commonly assumed, but rather fluid and dynamic states that result from inhibitory and developmental factors that reside within individuals and their external environments. Each chapter focuses on factors that create vulnerability and those that promote resilience with reference to important subjects, such as child development, epigenetics, trauma, shame, addiction, poverty, emotional intelligence, personality, empathy, compassion and behaviour-change. Attention is given to the role of positive, early life experiences in creating an internal working model of the world that is based on trust, intimacy and hope and how the root causes of vulnerability often lie in the cyclical relationship that exists between child maltreatment, trauma and socially deprived environments that cumulatively act to keep people locked in states of inter-generational poverty. The author explores pressing and important workplace issues, such as occupational stress and burnout, and highlights the urgent need for compassionate systems of management that are functionally equipped to address human error, stress and trauma in complex professional arenas where staff are continually exposed to other peoples’ suffering. The book also demonstrates how strategies and processes which coerce individuals and groups into changing their behaviour are generally counterproductive and it explains how resilient change is invariably supported by strategies that enhance trust, cooperation, personal control and self-efficacy. This book will benefit professional staff, including health, emergency and social services, humanitarian workers, counsellors and therapists, as well as students who want to learn more about the conceptual frameworks that explain vulnerability and resilience.

Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision in Daring Greatly that encourages us to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly and courageously. 'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly' -Theodore Roosevelt Every time we are introduced to someone new, try to be creative, or start a difficult conversation, we take a risk. We feel uncertain and exposed. We feel vulnerable. Most of us try to fight those feelings - we strive to appear perfect. Challenging everything we think we know about vulnerability, Dr. Brené Brown dispels the widely accepted myth that it's a weakness. She argues that vulnerability is in fact a strength, and when we shut ourselves off from revealing our true selves we grow distanced from the things that bring purpose and meaning to our lives. Daring Greatly is the culmination of 12 years of groundbreaking social research, across the home, relationships, work, and parenting. It is an invitation to be courageous; to show up and let ourselves be seen, even when there are no guarantees. This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly. 'Brilliantly insightful. I can't stop thinking about this book' -Gretchen Rubin Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Her groundbreaking work was featured on Oprah Winfrey's Super Soul Sunday, NPR, and CNN. Her TED talk is one of the most watched TED talks of all time. Brené is also the author of The Gifts of Imperfection and I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't).

As the global climate shifts, communities are faced with a myriad of mitigation and adaptation challenges. These highlight the political, cultural, economic, social, and physical vulnerability of social groups, communities, families, and individuals. They also foster resilience and creative responses. Research in hazard management, humanitarian response, food security programming, and other areas seeks to identify and understand factors that create vulnerability and strategies that enhance resilience at all levels of social organization. This book uses case studies from around the globe to demonstrate ways that communities have fostered resilience to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.

With chapters that incorporate additional perspectives on social vulnerability, this second edition focuses on the social construction of disasters, demonstrating how the characteristics of an event are not the only reason that tragedies unfurl. It incorporates disaster case studies to illustrate concepts, relevant and seminal literature, and the most recent data available. In addition to highlighting the U.S. context, it integrates a global approach and includes numerous international case studies. The book highlights recent policy changes and current disaster management approaches and infuses the concept of community resilience and building capacity throughout the text.

On Vulnerability maps out an array of perspectives for critically examining the nature of vulnerability, its unequal patterning across different social groups, alongside the everyday social processes that render us vulnerable – interactions, identity and group dynamics. Each chapter equips the reader with a particular sensitising framework for navigating and questioning what it means to be vulnerable or how people cope amid vulnerability. From deviance, stigma and the spoiling or fracturing of identity, to perspectives such as intersectionality, risk, emotions and the vulnerable body, the book traces the theoretical roots of these different analytical lenses, before applying these through illuminating examples and case studies. Drawing on scholarship across more interpretative, analytic and critical traditions, the chapters combine into a multi-dimensional toolkit which will enable the study of the cultural meanings of vulnerability, the political-economic factors that shape its patterning, with a critical sensibility for ‘unlearning’ many assumptions, therefore challenging our sense of who is, or who can be, vulnerable. This book is designed to equip undergraduate and post-graduate students and researchers across the social, health and human sciences, aiding them as they study and question the experiences and structures of vulnerability in our social world.

Each year more than 130 million people are affected by natural hazards such as floods, earthquakes, droughts and cyclones. This book explores these issues from a South Asian standpoint, presented in the form of case studies and essays by experts from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Measuring Vulnerability to Natural Hazards presents a broad range of current approaches to measuring vulnerability. It provides a comprehensive overview of different concepts at the global, regional, national, and local levels, and explores various schools of thought. More than 40 distinguished academics and practitioners analyse quantitative and qualitative approaches, and examine their strengths and limitations. This book contains concrete experiences and examples from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe to illustrate the theoretical analyses.The authors provide answers to some of the key questions on how to measure vulnerability and they draw attention to issues with insufficient coverage, such as the environmental and institutional dimensions of vulnerability and methods to combine different methodologies.This book is a unique compilation of state-of-the-art vulnerability assessment and is essential reading for academics, students, policy makers, practitioners, and anybody else interested in understanding the fundamentals of measuring vulnerability. It is a critical review that provides important conclusions which can serve as an orientation for future research towards more disaster resilient communities.