The role of resilience in assisting the educational connectedness of at-risk youth: A study of service users and non-users

Many at-risk youth utilize support services, including educational, health, correctional, and community/family/youth services. This study investigated young service users and non-users, resilience, and 'educational connectedness' (academic engagement, academic achievement, academic difficulty). Structural equation modeling with 249 young people (M = 16.5 years) showed that service users were lower in educational connectedness, while resilience was positively associated with educational connectedness. There was also evidence that resilience played a moderating or buffering role for service users. Specifically, service users' negative educational outcomes were attenuated once resilience was entered into modeling and there were significant interactions between service use and resilience such that resilience explained more variance in the educational connectedness of service users than non-service users.