The Promoting Adult Resilience (PAR) Program: The Effectiveness of the Second, Shorter Pilot of a Workplace Prevention Program

Abstract

The Promoting Adult Resilience (PAR) program is a strengths-based resilience building program that integrates Interpersonal and CBT perspectives. The second, successful pilot of the PAR program in the human-service departments of a local government organisation used a 7-week format. At posttest, PAR participants reported greater self-efficacy, more family satisfaction, greater work–life fit and balance and less negative family–work spillover than the comparison group. At the 6-month follow up, these gains were maintained, although to a lesser degree, with work–life balance being considerably strengthened, and negative spillover in both directions reduced. Participants also reported greater optimism, greater work satisfaction, less stress and promisingly for human service workers, exhaustion was reduced and work vigour was increased. This is important for human service professions as exhaustion, a component of burnout, is associated with higher employee turnover and poorer employee outcomes. Participants reported that they could easily incorporate the new skills into their lives and at follow up, they continued to use the skills to manage the demands of their work and family lives.

Resilience training in the workplace from 2003 to 2014: A systematic review

“…The Promoting Adult Resilience (PAR) programme (viz. Liossis et al ., ; Millear et al ., ) consisted of seven main topics: (1) understanding personal strengths and resilience, (2) understanding and managing stress, (3) challenging and changing negative self‐talk, (4) practising changing negative self‐talk, (5) promoting positive relationships, (6) problem‐solving and managing conflict, and (7) bringing it together. Sood et al .…”

“…(), Grant et al . (), Jennings, Frank, Snowberg, Coccia, and Greenberg (), Liossis, Shochet, Millear, and Biggs (), McCraty and Atkinson (), Millear, Liossis, Shochet, Biggs, and Donald (), Pidgeon et al . (), Pipe et al .…”

“…The resilience training interventions ranged from a single 90‐min session (Sood et al ., ) to 13 weekly sessions (Burton et al ., ). Other programmes were delivered over a two‐and‐a‐half‐day retreat (Pidgeon et al ., ), 3 weeks (Pipe et al ., ), 4 weeks (Jennings et al ., ), 5 weeks (Waite & Richardson, ), 6 weeks (Sherlock‐Storey et al ., ), 7 weeks (Liossis et al ., ), 10 weeks (Abbott et al ., ; Arnetz et al ., ; Grant et al ., ), 11 weeks (McCraty & Atkinson, ; Millear et al ., ), and 12 weeks (Carr et al ., ).…”

Psychological Well-Being Revisited: Advances in the Science and Practice of Eudaimonia

“…A mental health program designed to promote adult resilience in the workplace used interpersonal and cognitive behavioral therapy over an 11-week intervention; findings showed significant improvements in mental health and well-being [215]. Similar effects were obtained with a second, shorter (7-week) intervention [216]. The emotional disclosure of trauma has been shown to improve sense of mastery, personal growth, and self-acceptance, while decreasing depressive symptoms, anxiety and somatization [217].…”

Psychological Resilience Building in Disaster Risk Reduction: Contributions from Adult Education

“…Despite some existence of validated resiliencebuilding measures like the Promotion Adult Resilience Program (Liossis et al 2009), a theoretical discussion on adult resilience training, based on the resilience concept, is lacking. However, as adult education's main aim is the purposeful change of mental processes, this field has a great deal of research and methods that could be beneficial in developing and implementing adult resilience-building measures in DRR.…”